This gives a greater degree of security to the bank that the credit will be repaid, and gives it an alternative source of revenue (the house) if it is not.

Since its establishment in 1973, the Bahrain Monetary Agency has been involved in regulating all banks and other financial institutions with a view to ensuring the highest degree of credibility and improving banking practices in the country's financial sector.

Elsewhere the degree of concentration of bank debt at short-term maturities has varied, the share of such maturities for African and West Asian countries, for example, being about 55 per cent and that for Eastern European countries only 40 per cent.

The report on economic and social conditions in West Africa in 2008 and prospects for 2009 finds that growth outcomes for 2009 in West Africa are expected to vary significantly across countries, depending on their reliance on external flows and bank lending to finance investment, trade links to the deeply affected high-income countries and the degree of participation by foreign banks in the domestic financial sector.