In any case, as Alastair Ryan of UBS points out, the impact on banks of a collapse would depend not only on the size of exposures, but also on the quality of collateral, the solidity of the counterparties with whom hedges have been taken out, and whether local money had been used to fund loans.

ECONOMIST: European banks

Vandana Krishna, the state's secretary of Women and Child Development, says the funding gap could be solved by giving village panchayats, or local governments, a special fund to make loans to anganwadis.

ECONOMIST: Child malnutrition in India

But it is loans made to Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), special companies set up to fund ambitious and often redundant infrastructure projects, that have attracted the greatest attention.

FORBES: Chinese Banks' Illusory Earnings