(Bloomberg) -- U.K. consumer confidence matched its lowest in six years in August as a looming no-deal Brexit raised Britons’ concerns about their finances.
GfK’s headline confidence measure dropped to minus 14, its joint lowest since July 2013, when the U.K. flirted with recession. The figure equaled consumer confidence at the start of 2019, when then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement was rejected for the first time.
A separate report by Lloyds (LON:LLOY) found that business optimism crashed in August to the lowest since 2011.All five components of the GfK measures fell this month, led by people’s view of their future personal finances, and the future of the British economy in general. The index for willingness to make major purchases fell to 1 from 4 in July.
“If there is a continuation of that dip in our feelings about our future wallets, we’d quickly see a headline score crash to a level that approaches the worrying figures seen in the worst days of the 2008/2009 financial crisis,” said Joe Staton, client strategy director at GfK.
The scores could indicate more pain for an already hurting British economy The U.K. posted its first quarterly contraction since 2012 in the second quarter, and on Wednesday Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament next month battered the pound as no-deal Brexit anxiety heightened.
