Having pursued the corporate borrowers in the 1980s, with rather mixed success, they were now looking to households as a source of growth. We can all recall the advertisement for one major bank in which the formerly stern manager practises saying ‘yes’ in the mirror each morning.
So by the mid 1990s, we had a household sector more able and more inclined to demand housing finance, and financial institutions more willing to supply it. It is hardly surprising that this should ultimately result in households carrying much more debt, as well as higher levels of assets, than they had before.