The Bank for International Settlements has released a working paper which explores the Latin American lessons from the Global Financial Crisis, with a particular focus on credit growth. The authors compare economic variables between Latin America and other regions, as well as between Latin American economies.  They find that real credit growth during the crisis was higher in countries that had lower external financing needs relative to GDP, had lower currency mismatches and were well placed to implement countercyclical monetary policies at the outset of the crisis.  Data from Latin American banks support these conclusions.  The authors further reason that higher ratios of capitalisation, liquidity and bank efficiency helped particular banks to better cope with the effects of the credit crisis.