Rather than take defaulting borrowers to the region's notoriously slow courts, lenders are investing heavily in systems to spot and chase late payments.

ECONOMIST: Consumer lending is taking root in central Europe

LG, the credit-card issuer with the worst record for defaulting borrowers.

ECONOMIST: Chinese banks

Not all defaulting borrowers are suffering families.

ECONOMIST: America's property crisis

These days, for instance, lenders are less likely to foreclose on defaulting borrowers: in America, less than a quarter of loans 90 days late or more are in foreclosure, compared with three-quarters in the late 1990s, points out Charles Calomiris, of Columbia University.

ECONOMIST: Securitisation

It can indicate that asset prices are falling, borrowers defaulting and banks either failing or sitting on their cash instead of lending it out.

FORBES: Magazine Article

With home prices now flat or falling, though, more borrowers are defaulting on their mortgages.

NPR: Big Subprime Lender Files for Bankruptcy

The target was designed to keep big borrowers like Brazil from defaulting on their debt service by budgeting enough money to cover bond interest to foreign investors.

FORBES: Brazil On Target for Primary Budget Surplus