Lesson 5 of 8

Hardship and forbearance: payment plans, restructuring and how they are counted

When a borrower cannot pay as planned, changing the terms of the loan can help both sides, or it can hide a loss for a while. This lesson explains how a lender assesses what a borrower can afford, the short-term and long-term measures it can offer, what makes a measure viable, how a longer term changes the instalment, how loans with eased terms are counted and when they stop being counted as such, and how markets differ in what they require of lenders and in the help available to borrowers.

Published 16 October 2026