The word "mortgages" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when referring to the lending of money secured by a property or other item of worth, or to the document that formalizes the agreement between the lender and the borrower. For example: "The bank recently increased its offerings of mortgages to first-time home buyers."
I make my living teaching finance, the branch of economics concerned with putting a value on assets such as stocks, bonds, mortgages and options.
JP Morgan estimated it might have to take as much as $54bn of losses on mortgages, which it managed to avoid.
Many buyers are now taking legal action in Cyprus, claiming they were mis-sold mortgages and misled by developers and solicitors.
"Many people who took out Swiss franc mortgages for properties in Cyprus did so simply because the interest rate was lower, and they say they were never warned of the currency risks," says Richard Gorrill at overseas mortgages specialist Conti, based in Hove, East Sussex.
Abbott said millions of Australians had home mortgages and the last thing they wanted to see was a decline in the value of their most important asset.
"We had no money when we got there and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education.
"But eventually some of them will find they have lost the roof over their heads because they won't be able to meet their mortgages, they can't trade any longer".
This scheme has financially ruined many hospitals, leaving them to draw on finances normally reserved for staff and supplies to repay steep mortgages.
The result, all the way up from sub-prime mortgages to the bond market itself, was that the system was awash with financial products which were massively overvalued, all guaranteed by what were, in the end, equally worthless ratings.
The industry is facing an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, and Horta-Osório attempted to demonstrate competition in a market place in which Lloyds has market shares of over 18% in current accounts, mortgages and savings.
According to the European Spreadsheet Risk Group, spreadsheets were behind the collapse of the Jamaican banking system in the late 1990s, and their use was key in the development of collateralised debt obligations – the financial instruments that promised sub-prime mortgages could somehow become AAA-rated investments.
