Do you know how long it takes to pay off a £2,000 balance on a credit card?

Take the test to see if you are among the 4 per cent of Britons that actually know

There are now more than three million people in “severe problem debt” (Peter Macdiarmid | Getty Images)

If you just paid the minimum amount off a credit card balance of £2,000, how long do you think it would take to clear the debt? It may surprise you – and don’t worry if you don’t know the answer, only one in a hundred people does.

In fact, some 96 per cent of people have no idea how long it takes to pay off a credit card, with the vast majority of UK adults underestimating the impact of just making the minimum payment each month when paying off plastic card debt. Just 1 per cent guessed correctly. Will you be in that 1 per cent?

Click on the image below to see how you compare

The figures have been published in a study by TotallyMoney.com to reveal just how little anyone understands about credit card debt and interest.

What about interest charged? Most people have no idea about that too. Asked how much they’d be charged in interest if only paying off the minimum amount a third reckon it would be £499 or less. In fact the total would be considerably more at £3,983.

The lesson? Pay as much off your credit card as you can as soon as you can.

Alastair Douglas, TotallyMoney.com chief said “What’s worrying about the results of this study, is the degree to which UK adults underestimate the impact of managing their credit card debt in this way. There’s significant confusion around what making the minimum payment actually means.

“When those respondents who said they make the minimum payment each month were asked why they chose that option, 33 per cent said they did so to avoid paying interest, and 18 per cent said they thought it was the cheapest way to clear their debts.”