A company spokesman, Jake Jang, acknowledged that demand was sluggish in South Korea, where concerns about a sagging economy have forced lenders to tighten credit as would-be customers stayed away from showrooms.

Laws that effectively limit fees and interest in mortgage contracts are tantamount to usury ceilings, which have generally been eliminated for a good reason: They force lenders to ration credit and thus deny funds to some borrowers.

The package is intended to offset adverse effects of the government's banking policy, which includes forcing lenders to cut off delinquent borrowers if needed.

The new rules have forced lenders to re-assess their clients more rigorously and either tear up lending agreements completely or attach higher costs to loans and funding.

Worse, they and the new land against which loans were secured declined in value in some cases to less than the amount borrowed, forcing lenders to foreclose.

Nor is there agreement yet on rules that would force big lenders to pay a far greater share of the burden of bailing out a country.

It could do that, and drive down costs, by forcing lenders to compete for the right to participate in the loan program at all.

Because these institutions compete with banks and other lenders in low-income neighborhoods, they increase competition for financial services - keeping prices down and forcing lenders to be more responsive to community needs.

Excessive short-term borrowing by Asian companies - a key contributing factor in the crisis - has forced banks and other private lenders in the United States, Europe and Japan to roll over billions of dollars to Asian borrowers.

Defaults by Developers Unable to refinance their mortgages, many developers will walk away, forcing lenders to take over their properties.