Lessons in lending

China credit

While banks and regulators in China are making moves to fight corruption and fraud in the country's financial markets, it is a slow and difficult process. Some changes have been made - the bankruptcy law passed in August is one example - but the widespread nature of the problem means improvements will not happen overnight.

China is the world's second largest bad loan market after Japan - in 2005, rating agency Standard & Poor's estimated that there was around $700 billion in bad loans in the