In the second quarter of this year, the ratio of adjusted new bad debts to loans outstanding rose to 2.1 per cent, returning to around the end-2009 level. The  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  deterioration involved loans to firms, the default rate on which reached 3.2 per cent, with a high of over 6 per cent for construction firms.
Preliminary data indicate that the deterioration has not halted in the last few months. By contrast, the default rate on loans to households remained stable at 1.2 per cent, relatively low by the standards of the past.