Mortgaged to recovery
Victoria Hartley
After a decade of growth, the UK mortgage market entered 2008 in an unprecedented funding crisis. In March, the Bank of England, acting in concert with the European and US central banks, pumped £10 billion into the UK money markets - the wholesale markets where banks lend to one another. This intervention aimed to remedy a block in the normal flow of capital funds between banks which has become known as the liquidity crisis or credit crunch.
With banks increasingly reluctant to lend to each other because...