Credit derivatives were hailed as one of the most impressive innovations in the pre-credit crunch world. Since the end of 2000, when statistics were first gathered, the market has grown from $631bn to $62,000bn, an eye-popping 10,000 per cent, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

The beauty of these instruments, which act as a kind of insurance against bond defaults, were their liquidity, which made them far more valuable as a proxy for risk and a reference point for pricing debt. Volumes were more than 10-times that of cash bonds, which were considered less responsive to market sentiment.