The results of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 are something that is going to live with us for a very long time. With the collapse of the North American housing market, a chain reaction across the globe was felt. It centred around what is known as the “subprime” mortgage market. In other words, lending happened to people who would clearly struggle at some point to afford the mortgages being granted to them. In the USA, this was centred around the institutions of Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae. When the customers they lent to could not pay, they both collapsed. The best example in the UK is Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The issue was not that the customer who had been lent to were criminals or had done anything wrong. They would have been subjected to the same AML IDENTITY CHECK criteria, such as that provided by www.w2globaldata.com/regulatory-compliance-solutions-and-software/aml-id-checks/, like the rest of us and duly passed. The issue was the mortgages they were given. Generally, this was without the advice required and with a view as sold as a product rather than the long-term commitment that they actually are.
The film explains that people with poor credit, the unemployed or those on low incomes were lent to. Even those with good income and ratings were given mortgages of up to 100% of the property’s value. In many cases, this was up to 125% as a “top-up” loan.