If your name is not on the list, you are not coming in. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is playing bouncer with its debt issuance guarantee programme and CIT Group remains stuck the wrong side of the velvet rope. The lender to small and mid-market businesses is facing down a long pipeline of maturities with its usual wholesale funding unavailable. Now, with the FDIC blocking the doorway to selling debt, the prospect of a bankruptcy filing has been raised.

Yet nothing much has changed for CIT in recent weeks. GMAC’s approval to sell government-backed debt in May might have raised hopes that CIT would be next. But at the end of the first quarter, the company had about $10bn of maturities over the next year against $6.4bn in committed funding. The gap must be met through reducing its portfolio as clients pay back loans, asset sales or secured financing through other government programmes. This is feasible. But next April another $2bn in bank financing comes due and the company is facing a longer-term mismatch between cash in and cash out, according to CreditSights.