No outsider knows the percentages of non-performing loans at the big four banks of China, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank.
In particular, in order to accelerate the removal of non-performing loans from their balance sheets, banks are further asked to take specific measures to dispose, in essence, of half of such loans within a year and a large part (around 80%) within two years.
It has made more progress in disposing of banks' non-performing loans than have Thailand or Indonesia (or Japan, indeed), so Korean banks are now able to make new loans to both firms and households.
China banks were down around 20 percent in the first half of the year, thanks in part to concerns over non-performing loans on the books of the big state owned banks lending to real estate builders.
Even a soft landing is expected to produce a new wave of non-performing loans that could make the banks look less attractive to investors.
The evidence confirms that countries with the highest proportion of state-owned banks have the highest bank operating costs and the largest proportion of non-performing loans.
Proponents of a China hard landing say that the big four government banks have a growing number of non-performing loans owed by cities and states across the country.
Serious, competitive reform to the banking system is essential if the state banks' legacy of poor profitability and high non-performing loans is not to continue jeopardising the country's prospects for growth.
Much of the banks' real-estate portfolios and their non-performing loans secured against property have been sold off at distressed prices.
The banks, which are sick and tired of seeing non-performing loans eat into their profits, are loth to lend more.
BlackRock said that based on its evidence, local government debt levels should be manageable even if state banks were forced to write down significant amounts of non-performing loans because of real estate.
As in other countries, Spanish banks are tightening conditions on mortgages as the number of non-performing loans rises, pricing out potential buyers.
Some estimates put Korean banks' non-performing loans as high as a staggering 12.7% of GDP.
As the Malaysian economy slows and thousands of jobs are lost, financial companies and banks are seeing their non-performing loans soar.
Anecdotal reports abound that regulators are requiring banks to put aside reserves for as much as 200% of non-performing loans, an egregious amount unless the underlying accounts are suspect.
The banks, for their part, had to deal with a raft of non-performing loans, which required big clean-ups and recapitalisations.
The Reserve Bank of India has said that mid-market banks are not facing systematic problems with non-performing loans and has made its concerns clear.
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