In the credit markets, greater risk awareness by banks and increased bank funding costs have been reflected in the significant and general further tightening of lending standards in the euro area, the US and the UK.
At the same time, credit default swap (CDS) indices in Europe and the US have declined since mid-March (as shown in the left chart of slide 4), corporate bond spreads have narrowed across-the-board, and the availability of bank credit to households and nonfinancial corporations has not been significantly affected by the financial market turbulence.