As the credit card companies have the potential to become a significant factor in the provision of credit to households, such a gap could have created pressure for lowering the standards for providing credit in the entire financial system.
What we have in place today to respond to crises should be supported even as we work to improve those mechanisms and institutions. Some observers have also expressed concern about whether we can be confident that IMF programs for countries, in particular the countries of East Asia, are likely to alter their economies significantly and permanently.