Finally, banks are also making progress in repairing their balance sheets – the aggregate non-performing loan (NPL) ratio has nearly halved from its 2013 peak of around 8%, to its current level of 4.4%. The recently published results of the 2018 stress tests reflect exactly this.
If the situation had been otherwise, the  BIS Review 21/2003  1  United States at the end of the nineteenth century would never have been poised to displace Great Britain as the world’s leading economy. Reputation was especially important to early U.S. bankers. It is not by chance that in the nineteenth century many bankers could effectively issue uncollateralized currency.