To be sure, the debt service burden is quite high by historical standards, and personal bankruptcies moved up in 2001 and 2002. However, households have been converting their more expensive, non-tax-deductible debt  BIS Review 24/2003  3  into mortgage debt, which has helped keep the debt service burden fairly stable during the past few years.
What is more, banks are not experiencing broad weakness in their consumer loan portfolios as most of the increase in delinquencies has been in a narrow spectrum of households.