For example, in recent tests, the Federal Reserve has assessed potential interest rate risk by analyzing how sensitive deposits will be to rate rises, whether banks might have to raise deposit rates more than expected to retain deposits, and whether banks that are hedging interest rate risk are all dealing with the same few counterparties.
Global GDP expanded by 5 per cent in 2007, which capped off several years of well above average performance. The US economy had been slowing for a while as concerns mounted over the financial problems, but even into the first quarter of 2008 global GDP was still expanding at 4 per cent.