There have been several significant changes to the credit card industry throughout the last quarter of 2008 to present, mainly due to the credit crunch.

One of the main causes of the credit crunch was irresponsible lending, so as a result, credit card providers have tightened acceptance criteria making it harder for some to be approved for credit. This caused the acceptance rate to drop, as providers became more strict over who they would lend to in order to break the trend that had a large part in triggering the financial crisis.

However, over the last few months there has been an increase in competition within the credit card market, which has led to more choice and therefore better deals and in turn increased consumer appetites for credit cards.

Another change is the way in which the more credit card providers are able to warranted offering more attractive deals through reducing the risk factor by only offering them to existing customers that use another financial product such as a bank account. This not only allows them to cross sell credit cards, but also enables them to be able to police the acceptance rate based on customer profile history.

For example, Natwest and RBS both increased balance transfer durations from 13 months to 15 months on their Platinum cards, but you can only benefit from this offer if you are an existing customer.

This said, there is nothing from stopping you exposing yourself to the best credit card deals on the market by opening multiple current accounts across a number of banking institutions, after all, these days most accounts are free to open with no maintenance costs.

According to the British Bankers' Association, in April 2009, outstanding credit fell by £412 million to £64.3 billion, £457 million less than the figures recorded from same month in 2008. The proportion of balances accumulating interest also fell by 0.9 percent to 72.9 percent.