The Bank for International Settlements, the co-ordinating body for the world's central banks, did its best to make us feel miserable yesterday, by producing data which suggested that cross-border lending by the banks fell by $5 trillion (€3.8 trillion) over nine months, the sharpest fall ever recorded.

Last week, in its Global Financial Stability Report, the International Monetary Fund raised its estimate of writedowns by banks to $4.4 trillion across the world, after taking account of deteriorating conditions in Europe and Japan.