Over the past few weeks, the global financial system has appeared on the brink of collapse, as mounting bank losses and a lack of banking liquidity have resulted in a wave of collapsing financial institutions across Europe and the US. While the immediate threat to the financial system appears to have been averted, the continuing deleveraging process, declining asset prices and heightened uncertainty regarding the viability of financial institutions have sharply reduced the willingness and ability of banks to lend to each other and to other borrowers, and at the same time reduced the willingness of borrowers to increase their levels of debt. As the events of recent weeks have unfolded, it has become increasingly clear that the fallout from the financial market crisis will continue to restrict bank lending severely for at least the next several months, pushing the world's major economies into recession. As a consequence, growth in the OECD economies next year is projected to be the weakest since 1982, with output forecast to rise by just 0.4 per cent.