The friend of the consumer is no friend of the moneylender. Since the Democratic party of Japan seized power at the end of August, shares in consumer finance companies – the kind of outfits that routinely charge high double-digit interest rates on unsecured personal loans – have been clobbered, down almost a fifth by the end of last week. CFCs had a rough time of it under the LDP, which passed a law in 2006 capping rates and limiting each borrower’s outstanding debt to no more than a third of annual income. It seemed a reasonable assumption that the avowedly populist DPJ would not look on the dastardly sarakin any more charitably.

Talk of relaxing that law before its full implementation in June next year on Monday sent the four largest of the Topix’s 23 non-banks – Acom, Aiful, Promise and Takefuji – up about a fifth. Yet a reprieve could be too little, too late for some. Aiful, the largest CFC by assets at year-end in March, for example, is aggressively winding down assets while trying to persuade 60 or so domestic creditors to accept delays in repaying about a third of its $10bn of long-term debt. Its credit default swap is Asia’s worst performer this year, widening a fifth more than CIT, the US lender that succumbed to bankruptcy at the weekend.