The term financial crisis, to be more specific, is broadly applied to a range of situations which encompass banking panics, disorderly functioning of markets, stock market collapses, bursting of asset price bubbles, currency collapses, sovereign defaults, amongst others. Crises can happen anywhere, at any time, and often occur when they are least expected.
History is peppered with crises that have varying origins – starting from the Tulips mania of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  the 17th century to the dot com bubble of the 2000s and to the 2007 sub-prime crisis and the latest brouhaha over the sovereign debt crisis. Origins of a crisis are hard to pinpoint.