The point at which credit risk becomes exchange rate redenomination risk is ambiguous.

Credit risk is best hedged through diversification across uncorrelated credits.

Credit risk in the mortgage market is being assumed by the government, and market risk by the Fed.

But, if more risk builds up through continued expansion of shadow credit, this risk buffer may become inadequate.

While credit expansion can offset this to some degree, increased production based on credit expansion inevitably leads to large scale financial risk.

Indeed, a chain of financial intermediaries now earn fees without bearing the credit risk.

This risk was highlighted by the recent downgrade of Italy s credit rating by Standard Poor s.

In the past, banks kept loans and mortgages on their books, retaining the credit risk.

They range from subdued bank lending to unusually high risk aversion, and from discredited credit vehicles to the withdrawal of some institutions from credit intermediation altogether.

With the government assuming credit risk, mortgages become as safe as government bonds of comparable maturity.

This would, in its turn, allow banks and other lenders to better assess enterprise risks using modern ICT based techniques for credit risk assessment and credit scoring.

Similarly, positioning the IMF as a general risk insurer by introducing precautionary credit lines above normal access limits would be compatible neither with its mission to provide financial assistance on deliberately non risk adjusted terms nor with the current system of refinancing short term Fund credit through risk free official reserves.

Even if this sounds unfair, it is logical to expect rating agencies, which had been lax in evaluating credit risk, now to be rigorous in assessing all forms of risk, including sovereign risk.

In other words, the Fed will use regulatory instruments to control credit growth, risk taking, and leverage.

Clarifying ultimate responsibility for credit quality and risk would also reduce intermediation costs by eliminating the need to resort to informal channels, such as credit guarantee and trust companies.

Innovative financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps enabled the distribution of risk throughout the economy.

Investors thus assumed that they did not need to assess the credit risk of eurozone countries (national) public debt.

The immediate causes are well known. They range from subdued bank lending to unusually high risk aversion, and from discredited credit vehicles to the withdrawal of some institutions from credit intermediation altogether.

Like banks, all these financial institutions are subject to liquidity or rollover risk the risk of going belly up if their creditors do not rollover their short term credit lines.

There is now a serious risk of a systemic meltdown in US financial markets as huge credit and asset bubbles collapse.

Germany will look like a better credit risk, thereby allowing it to fund its current budget deficits more easily and cheaply.

Meanwhile, prolonged low interest rates contributed to a chase for yield in the financial sector that resulted in disregard of credit risk.

Insurance companies and pension funds, on the other hand, have limited capacity for credit risk, but more for market and liquidity risks.

In most developing countries, financial service providers are not yet in a position to use modern credit risk management techniques to assess borrowers' risk and thus competitively provide capital, particularly trade finance, to enterprises.

But, as local government debt grows, Chinese banks have begun to regard real estate and local financing platforms as a major credit risk.

Credit rating agencies, institutional investors, and asset managers are encouraged to see how such factors can be incorporated into their own risk models.

Banks and other financial firms borrow short increasingly in recent years from the commercial securities market, not deposits and lend long at higher interest rates, taking on both credit risk (of default) and interest rate risk.

The problem may be that there are not many investors who want to take a long position on oil and Nigerian credit risk simultaneously.

But access to cheap credit from state controlled banks creates an incentive for SOEs to generate surplus capacity, which increases systemic risk in the economy.

No player but the last in the securitization chain was exposed to the ultimate credit risk the rest simply raked in high fees and commissions.

This particular model predicts that banks will over invest in high risk, high yield projects, i.e., asymmetric information lets toxic loans onto the credit market.

This breakdown suggests that the 8 trillion cushion would be sufficient to offset potential losses arising from higher risk credit in China s commercial banking sector.

Given the risk of re inflating asset bubbles, no one should expect a dramatic easing of credit of the type that followed the 2008 meltdown.

The relatively low interest rates on both short term and long term bonds are now causing both individual investors and institutional fund managers to assume duration risk and credit quality risk in the hope of achieving higher returns.

Credit Where Credit is Due

The problem is that the Fed s liquidity injections are not creating credit for the real economy, but rather boosting leverage and risk taking in financial markets.

Moreover, in a risk off environment, when investors are risk averse or when equities and other risky assets are subject to market and or credit uncertainty, it may be better to hold negative yielding bonds than riskier and more volatile assets.

One possibility is that they worry about borrowers credit risk, though this would have to be extremely high to justify the complete cessation of long term lending.

However, these are notional values, and some economists say that this value greatly exaggerates the market value and the true credit risk faced by the parties involved.

A high value inter bank funds transfer system settles transactions in real time, eliminates credit risk between system participants, increases circulation of funds, and enhances monetary policy implementation.

In the meantime, both sides risk disrupting transfer payments (including to the elderly) and the provision of public services, as well as eroding further America s global credit standing.

Usually, the bank takes months to process the application, and may demand a bribe even in the unlikely event it is willing to take on the credit risk.

Worse still, massive losses resulting from the materialization of credit risk might jeopardize core eurozone economies debt sustainability, placing the survival of the European Union itself in question.

Moreover, credit growth on both sides of the Atlantic will be restrained, as many financial institutions in the US and Europe maintain a risk averse stance toward lending.

All countries and policymakers face difficult choices concerning the timing of austerity, perceived sovereign credit risk, growth oriented reforms, and equitable sharing of the costs of restoring growth.