The bank credit crisis and its impact on growth

The financial sector, and in particular the banks, has been at the heart of the economic crisis ever since Lehman Brothers went bankrupt five years ago. The global financial crisis was, at least in part, to blame on banks taking unsustainable risk, driven by a race for higher and higher returns with greed epitomised for many by the size of bankers’ bonuses. The subsequent bail-outs and recapitalisations of banks in many countries – necessary to preserve global financial stability – added insult to injury, especially when banks, despite public bail-outs, seemed to return to some of the behaviours witnessed before the crisis.