Rising defaults on subprime mortgages, loans extended to people with poor credit histories, has caused the value of securities backed by home loans to drop.

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In this latter case, either the person with excellent credit applies alone, which is more difficult for mortgages and major loans, or the person with poor credit builds up their credit score before applying.

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Just as a poor credit risk has to pay banks a higher interest rate on loans, so a company or government that is a poor credit risk has to pay a higher yield on its bonds in order to entice investors to buy them.

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Muhammad Yunus is a global leader in anti-poverty efforts, and pioneered the use of "micro-loans" to provide credit to poor individuals.

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The rich with excellent credit scores gets cheap loans and the poor gets preditorized with expensive loans.

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Clinton recognized the untapped potential in some Carter-era legislation, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which would give his administration leverage over financial institutions to increase loans to members of key voting blocs despite their relatively poor credit ratings.

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The TransUnion study didn't measure whether borrowers had poor credit scores at the time they took out their loans or if their credit scores dropped because of their repayment problems.

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The private sector believed that housing prices would rise steadily, and thus that loans backed by housing could not go wrong, even if the borrowers had poor credit.

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Bonds like those sold by the New York Fed are backed by payments from large pools of home loans originated at the height of the U.S. housing boom to individuals with poor credit.

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