What alot of you seem to forget/may not know is the amount of modular pilots that were dependent on the HSBC professional development loan to fund training. Also in the past 2 to 3 years it was very easy to obtain credit. Hence all current qualified pilots had an easy time obtaining credit. HSBC now no longer loan offer the PDL for modular training.
The wannabe's coming through the system now will find that these credit facilties are no longer easy to obtain, hence many will now have to work and save, hence rather than training at 22 many will find that they will have to wait until the are in their late twenties / early thirties to commence training.
I didn't use HSBC to fund my training but when I was training I wouldn't hesistate to say two out of three trainees at the time were using the HSBC PDL.