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.
在这场危机中，首批倒下的机构之一是北岩(Northern Rock)，这是一家极具英国特色的银行，监管者似乎忽视了一个小细节：用短期存款和货币市场资金，在步入成熟阶段的繁荣期为超过100%房产价值的长期抵押贷款融资，是高度危险的。德国储蓄机构IKB紧随其后。监管者对抵押贷款相关的金融衍生品的指数化增长坐视不理，这不是因为它们隐藏在离岸金融中心——他们有权对自己觉察到的任何额外风险提高银行资本金要求——而是因为它们认为，这是安全金融创新的范例：为那些得不到银行服务的人提供银行服务，同时分散风险。