Mortgage madness

FOR all the horrors of British finance in the past five years, from bank bail-outs to sovereign downgrades, one of the biggest fears—a rush of defaults on mortgages—has yet to come true. The loans underpinning Britons’ homes, at £1 trillion ($1.6 trillion), are a big enough chunk of banks’ assets that mortgage-market distress could be catastrophic. But throughout the economic turmoil Britons have dutifully kept up their monthly payments, keeping banks’ mortgage losses low. Some worry that the fast-tracking of a new mortgage-boosting policy—Help to Buy—could unwittingly change all this.