Banks have improved their risk management partly by passing credit and market risks on to other parts of the financial system, such as other banks, insurers, pension funds and hedge funds.
In the past three years, the Social Democrats have given crucial support to Ms. Merkel in Parliament in passing credit lines and aid packages, tied to painful reforms, for euro-zone countries in need.
Congress is passing credit card "reform" legislation.
To apply, applicants must pass credit and fraud checks, and have a regular income.
Even if that does not come to pass, credit quality has undoubtedly declined.Cheap money has enabled many people on low or variable incomes to buy homes for the first time, pushing home ownership in America to a record high.
If the Dream Act passes, credit must go to those who have fought for it most strenuously, at greater personal risk and inconvenience than anyone else: the young people whose futures it will decide.
While American retailers had once pushed for changes unsuccessfully, there is new momentum this year after Congress passed credit card reforms in the spring aimed at curbing excessive fees and interest on credit cards.
In an attempt to counter it, Congress attached a measure to a recently passed credit card reform law directing the F.T.C. to press sites like freecreditreport.com to provide more prominent disclosures.
In contrast to the time when the Community Reinvestment Act was passed, credit scores now make it easier than ever to make loans the old-fashioned way, on the merits of individual households.
But the number of potential customers who cannot pass credit checks is up, too, with more homeowners unable to afford the $40 or so a month that Pinnacle charges to monitor a system.
As the phone does not pass credit card details on to the vendor, it has the scope to reduce fraud, which is a particularly big problem in America, given its reticence at adopting chip-and-PIN cards, which are standard in the rest of the developed world.At the moment it is only available in America, though it will probably arrive in Europe in 2015.
