Say you had £300 on your Visa card with £100 of that representing a cash advance or a credit card cheque, another £100 from a balance transfer from another card, and the final £100 a charge for something you bought with the card. The interest rates varies for each of these three costs, with cash generally incurring the highest charge of around 30%, and balance payments and purchases costing an average of 17.5%.

If, like the 32% of the 66.4 million credit cards in the UK, yours is one that you do not pay off in full each month, then let's look at where your monthly repayment goes. You would hope that if you paid £100 off on you £300 outstanding balance then that would pay off that part of your balance that is costing you the most, namely your cash advance or credit card cheque payment.

Not so. For years, most card companies have used repayments to pay off that part of your debt that is cheaper to you, and giving them less back in interest. Now, a Consumer White Paper before the Government insists that the card providers use your repayments to reduce the most expensive part of your debt, meaning that you will ultimately pay back your outstanding balance sooner.

They will also be banned from raising credit limits without asking cardholders first, stopped from sending unsolicited credit card cheques through the post and forbidden from raising interest rates on existing debts.

All good news for the consumer. Let's see how long this takes to filter through.