In the world of credit, is it 1998 or 1989? Optimists prefer the former, when the LTCM collapse and the Asian crisis proved a prelude to the last leg of the great bull market. The 1989 scenario is for pessimists, involving material damage to house prices, bank profits and consumer spending.

Some people would go further. Last week, the chief executive of Experian, the world’s biggest credit reference company, said this was the toughest market he had seen for US and UK retail lending in 25 years.