Firstly, this doesn't actually surprise me at all. If you take a totally over-subcribed industry, at saturation point with low houred frozen ATPL holders, and then add the number of pilots that are being added each year to those figures, then the risk factor for the banks in terms of obtaining the money back would be much greater. For the bank, us student pilots are seen as an investment - they put some money in, they get a lot back in a few years time. However, with the number of f(ATPL) holders dramatically exceeding the number of jobs available, then the banks might well be starting to come round to the view that there is just too much risk in these loans.
In short, it's a problem that we've heard mentioned time and time again - too many applicants, not enough places.
In a final note, I assume this is likely to have a negligable impact on us loan holders already?