At the same time, banks were concerned about counterparties’ creditworthiness, which reduced their willingness to lend, in particular for longer periods of time. 8 The spread went up considerably in summer 2007, before the year end 2007 and again sharply in September 2008 (figure 4).
It has frequently been predicted that the structure of financial systems and corporate finance will change in the wake of the technological progress in the financial markets and possibly also in connection with European monetary union. In the past, bank loans played a predominant role in corporate finance in Germany and in most other countries in continental Europe.