By Iain Withers
LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A growing number of consumersare over-indebted and ill-equipped to cope with an economicshock, Britain's largest debt charity, StepChange, has warnedafter a record number of calls to its national helpline in thefirst half of this year.
More than 331,000 people contacted StepChange for help withproblem debts in the first six months of 2019, and the charityfound those they advised were saddled with more unsecured debts.
StepChange said its findings showed an increasing number ofBritish households were struggling to cope financially and"living on a knife edge", with the charity seeing red flags"across the board".
Of the 190,484 people who received full debt advice duringthe period, the average level of unsecured debt was 13,799pounds, up 2% on the prior year and 6% up on 2016, the charitysaid in a report published on Wednesday.
Around a third of new clients' outgoings were more thantheir incomes, the charity added, with problem debt mostcommonly caused by unexpected life events such as a reduction inincome, injury or illness, or redundancy.
"These statistics provide a sobering assessment of the scaleof problem debt in this country", StepChange Chief ExecutivePhil Andrew said.
"Clearly more and more households are struggling to hang onand are ill-equipped to deal with any economic shocks the futuremay hold".
The charity's findings come against an uncertain outlook forBritain's economy, with the country bracing for potentialeconomic fallout in the event of a chaotic Brexit.
Analysts and regulators predict a disorderly Brexit wouldlikely lead to a spike in bad loans, but the political turmoilhas yet to make a significant dent on lenders' books, withgrowing wages and low unemployment helping keep impairments to aminimum.
Britain's economy shrank in the second quarter of 2019,although concerns of a recession were eased somewhat by strongerthan expected output in July.
Commenting on StepChange's data, Colin Jackson, bankinganalyst at Goodbody, said: "We would expect an increase inimpairments if a no-deal Brexit led to a slowdown in growth andan increase in unemployment".
"An increase in complaints could be a prelude to an increasein impairments more widely", he added.
(Reporting by Iain Withers, editing by Sinead Cruise and SteveOrlofsky)