At present, the great bulk of households still pay off all their debts by age 65, but the factors that encouraged or allowed 45 to 64-year olds to increase their debt over the past 10 years may in due course change behaviour further up the age scale.
The main, and somewhat contentious, issue here is to ensure that private lenders have the incentive to participate in crisis prevention and that they bear their fair share of the financial burden of dealing with crises.