Abstract: Rising American interest rates, excessive innovation in financial products, and the overly easy credit system in America, among a series of other factors, have led to the eruption to this subprime mortgage loan crisis. The global financial catastrophe caused by the subprime mortgage loan crisis is considered the most severe and influential financial crisis of the second half of the 20th century. Although it has not had much direct impact on China, an in-depth analysis of the causes and impact of the crisis will undoubtedly be illustrative for the globalizing Chinese economy and commercial banks' risk management for personal housing mortgage words: subprime mortgage crisis; housing mortgage loans; commercial banks; risk management