page_title: Financial crisis of 2007–2008
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Financial crisis of 2007–2008 / History
caption_attribution_description: Small line of customers (presumably anxious investors and savers) outside a branch of Northern Rock - a Mortgage specialist and a top UK mortgage lender - in North Street, Brighton, East Sussex. The business (a former "savings and loan" type Building Society which was demutualised in 1997) has been affected in part by problems in the US "subprime" lending market. Picture taken late on Friday afternoon on 14th September 2007.
context_page_description: The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis, was a severe worldwide financial crisis. Excessive risk-taking by banks combined with the bursting of the United States housing bubble caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally, culminating with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, and an international banking crisis. The crisis sparked the Great Recession, which, at the time, was the most severe global recession since the Great Depression. It was also followed by the European debt crisis, which began with a deficit in Greece in late 2009, and the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis, which involved the bank failure of all three of the major banks in Iceland and, relative to the size of its economy, was the largest economic collapse suffered by any country in economic history.
  U.S. home mortgage debt relative to GDP increased from an average of 46% during the 1990s to 73% during 2008, reaching $10.5 trillion. The increase in cash out refinancings, as home values rose, fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined.
caption: People queuing outside a Northern Rock branch in the United Kingdom to withdraw their savings during the financial crisis.
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