One of the first institutions to fail in this crisis was Northern Rock, a very British bank where supervisors appeared to overlook the niggling detail that funding long-term mortgages of more than 100 per cent of the value of homes in a mature boom, with short-term deposits and money market funds, is highly risky. A German savings institution, IKB, was next. Regulators did nothing about the exponential growth of mortgage-related financial derivatives, not because they were hidden in offshore financial centres – they had the discretionary powers to raise bank capital charges for any additional risks they perceived – but because they thought that this was an example of safe financial innovation that was banking the under-banked and diversifying risk.
在這場危機中，首批倒下的機構之一是北巖(Northern Rock)，這是一家極具英國特色的銀行，監管者似乎忽視了一個小細節：用短期存款和貨幣市場資金，在步入成熟階段的繁榮期為超過100%房產價值的長期抵押貸款融資，是高度危險的。德國儲蓄機構IKB緊隨其后。監管者對抵押貸款相關的金融衍生品的指數化增長坐視不理，這不是因為它們隱藏在離岸金融中心——他們有權對自己覺察到的任何額外風險提高銀行資本金要求——而是因為它們認為，這是安全金融創新的范例：為那些得不到銀行服務的人提供銀行服務，同時分散風險。