It suggests the equivalent of five million households used credit cards, overdrafts or savings to buy food.
It is the aggregate value of bank deposits less overdrafts but not the monetary base.
Consumer loans dominate turf that is shared in other rich countries with overdrafts and credit-card debt.
To inject more, the central bank wants to publish comparisons of the differing rates that banks charge on overdrafts.
More students are also graduating with large overdrafts, loans and credit card debts.
And 1.5 million households had taken out one or more unauthorised overdrafts or payday loans just to make ends meet.
In the OFT's 2008 report, the watchdog revealed that charges from unarranged overdrafts brought in 30% of their current account revenue.
Around 12% of consumers used authorised overdrafts, 8% spent on store cards and 5% simply borrowed money from friends or family.
In Japan, overdrafts are practically unheard of, and the consumer-finance market is almost six times bigger than the growing but underdeveloped credit-card market.
Without overdrafts or credit cards, such people struggle to get by.
Penalty fees for inadvertent overdrafts will become things of the past.
They have free bank accounts that are currently subsidised by richer customers with big savings balances and the financially disorganised who pay penalties for unauthorised overdrafts.
With fewer loans available, small businesses around the world generally increased their use of overdrafts, credit lines and trade credit with suppliers, for instance, the OECD report said.
Goodwin, in contrast, deliberately belied his Shredder nickname, earning customer loyalty at NatWest by keeping almost all of its 1, 500 branches open and eliminating charges for ATM use and overdrafts.
Much larger sums, running into many billions of pounds, are set aside each year by banks and other lenders to cover potential losses on credit cards, mortgages, overdrafts, and personal loans.
Mortgage lending by banks, meanwhile, is growing by 10% a quarter and unsecured lending in the form of credit cards, loans and overdrafts by 13% a quarter over the past year.
Financial reasons are being cited for reduced player investment at St James' Park this season, with owner Mike Ashley keen to bring down the club's reliance on overdrafts in the coming years.
But Mr Cruickshank reckons that competition will not sort out the overcharging that he sees in the small-business market (such businesses are, for example, charged around 30% in annual interest on unauthorised overdrafts).
All this is particularly worrying at a time when the British economy is finally slowing, its housing market subsiding and over-indebted consumers beginning to stagger under the weight of their mortgages and overdrafts.
Anne Pace, a Bank of America spokeswoman, says the bank's transfer services allow customers more choices and flexibility than having no plan, in which case all overdrafts are declined at the point of sale.
But these plans can be costly and probably aren't your best option since the typical customer rarely overdrafts intentionally, says Susan Weinstock, director of Pew Charitable Trusts' Safe Checking in the Electronic Age Project.
One could analogize the U.S. banking system that is frantically looking for a way to plug revenues holes caused by new regulations that limit their ability to extract historic fees from consumers like overdrafts.
Surveys of student debt often fail to distinguish between student loans, with their relatively easy terms, and overdrafts, where high real interest rates are charged and full repayment can be demanded at any time.
"They are not the type of people who would be able to go and negotiate large bank overdrafts so a lot of them are in a difficult position and need help immediately, " said Mr Sinclair.
Banks see them as a service to their customer: "We provide a number of services that allow consumers to avoid or greatly reduce the cost of overdrafts, " says Elizabeth Fogarty, vice president of public affairs at Citi.
There was such an uproar over it that federal banking regulators instituted new rules, forcing many banks to alter their policies on overdrafts and requiring them to get a customer's consent to overdraft protection instead of automatically offering it.
John Lamidey, chief executive of the Consumer Financial Association which represents the eight largest payday loan lenders, said most long-term debt was on credit cards and bank overdrafts and he advised anyone with long-term debt to go to Citizens Advice (CAB).
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