Regional banks have also steered clear of the other main area where credit is deteriorating, sub-prime lending (high-interest loans to borrowers with patchy credit).
ECONOMIST: Hard times have been good to America's smaller banks
Bank-issued credit card lending to sub-prime consumers jumped 41% between 2010 and 2011 hitting a four-year high in December 2011 with 1.1 million new bank credit cards issued.
FORBES: Subprime Lending Is Back, And That's Not Such A Bad Thing
The squeeze on mortgages has led to the entry of "credit crunch", along with the US source of the crisis - the "sub-prime" home loan to those with a poor credit history.
The bank had been facing increasing calls to disclose the extent of its exposure to crisis-hit U.S. sub-prime mortgages and liabilities in the subsequent credit squeeze.
The sub-prime mortgage crisis led to a global credit crisis, and fear (as measured by the VIX) spiked to record-high levels as the stock market collapsed.
It was as if the credit crunch and the sub-prime crisis had been left firmly at the elegant auction house door, along with dogs, muddy gumboots and maxed-out credit cards.
One potential worry is sub-prime lending: loans to people with a bad credit history.
From 2010 to 2011 there was a 4.7 percentage point increase in retail card originations to sub-prime borrowers, making up 31% of 2011 retail credit card originations, Equifax says.
FORBES: Subprime Lending Is Back, And That's Not Such A Bad Thing
Cunningham notes a similar decline in the number of debtors who reached out to credit counselors during the worst days following the sub-prime crisis.
FORBES: Credit Counselors Face Challenges of Their Own -- Just When They're Needed Most
The global economic downturn, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, investment bank failures, falling home prices, and tight credit pushed the United States into a recession by mid-2008.
The sub-prime lending market - worth billions of pounds - involves lending to people with poor credit records at an interest rate premium.
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