An unlikely saviour for the world's banking system has been identified by Antonio Maria Costa, the boss of the United Nations' crime and narcotics watchdog - drugs money.
In an interview with Austrian weekly Profil, Costa says the dirty cash has proved a vital form of liquidity for banks during the crisis and the UN has found evidence that interbank loans were funded by money from the trade.
In fact, there are "signs that some banks were rescued this way".
Over the years,
City types have been pretty heavily associated with drug dealers and their wares, so, bankers have probably inadvertently contributed to this particular bailout of their employers. Give them a bonus I say - I'm sure they'd know where to spend it.
Incidentally, what with this being a financial technology site, I should probably ask: what happened to the systems at these banks that are supposed to identify this kind of dodgy money?