Bankers concede that they may never collect the full value of their loans to developers.

The banks recovered much, but by no means all, of the value of their loans.

For many banks the agreement will mean accepting a 35 percent reduction in the value of their Mexican loans.

And banks are not facing the same steady decline in the value of their loans as they were the past few years, he said.

Rather, borrowing farmers put up 10 percent of the value of their loans as a stock deposit in the bank.

How will councils respond when the value of their loans (plus interest) cannot be recouped following a bust in the housing market?

Banks must start disclosing "fair value" of their loans, an accounting change long sought by the industry's critics.

Yet if they wait while a complex corporate empire is unwound, the value of their loans can shrivel almost to nothing.

Analysts said that the value of the company's loans to auto buyers appeared to far exceed its debts.

In fact, it is possible that some brokerage firms were not able to recover the full value of their loans and may take a loss.