Since the Financial Regulator's Consumer Protection Code came into full effect in July, credit card issuers have been barred from automatically raising credit card limits and can now only do so at the customer's request . . . instituting a de facto restriction on credit growth just months before lenders were forced by adverse market conditions to start repricing lending upwards.

The news late last month that BarclayCard had trimmed the credit limits of 500,000 existing customers and rejecting 55% of new applicants showed that the credit crunch wasn't just flattening the likes of Northern Rock . . . it was squeezing the little guy, too.

But while British personal borrowing is getting a sharp pinch, the Regulator may have saved Irish credit card holders the pain of a similarly sudden correction.

"Our sense is that limits aren't increasing at the pace they were previously, " said a spokesman for one major Irish card issuer.

"Up until recently all of the major companies regularly performed auto credit limit increases on customers accounts, however since the CPC they are unable to do so anymore . . . banks are now only able to increase limits at a customer's explicit request."

The restriction of unsolicited pre-approved credit facilities was one of the most commented on provisions in the CPC during the consultation period for the regulations in 2005, according to the Financial Regulator. Card issuers argued that sufficient safeguards were already in place and that further restrictions on credit cards would limit their benefits for consumers. Consumer advocacy groups, however, said that automatic credit extensions encouraged over-indebtedness - a view which won out in the end.

Yet Irish credit card holders were demonstrating the financial prudence the regulations sought to enforce even before the code came into effect.

The monthly increase in credit card debt took a dive from April to May when the rate dropped suddenly from 17.1% to 11.5% year-on-year.

Not surprisingly, this was the month when the bulk of SSIAs matured, giving savers an opportunity to pay down debt. Yet the growth in credit card debt has remained right around the lower figure since then. As of the end of August, the amount owed on Irish-issued cards stood at just under 2.8bn, up from nearly 2.5bn in August 2006.

The growth in credit card debt has averaged around 16% per year for the last three years.

"The regulator took a view that people's interests were better served through this measure, which was not necessarily the view taken by the industry, " said Irish Banking Federation spokesman Felix O'Regan. "The evidence indicates that most people don't push out to their credit limit anyway. Just because it happens in the UK doesn't mean it will happen here."