The financial crisis five years on: share your storiesTell us using the form below how the credit crisis has affected you, five years on from the week world's money markets froze

It was, said former Northern Rock boss Adam Applegarth, "the day the world changed." On 9 August 2007, the Newcastle-based bank suddenly found itself unable to finance its business on the world's money markets. Without access to those funds, it could no longer provide mortgages or loans to its customers.

The credit crisis had been building for a number of years, fuelled by the surge in sub-prime loans in the United States that would soon turn bad. But it was on 9 August 2007 that fear took over – the banks, terrified at the scale of the toxic debt in the system, simply stopped lending to each other and the world's money markets froze.

The European Central Bank pumped more than €200bn (£166bn) into the system in a desperate attempt to thaw the freeze, but that only served to heighten the panic and world markets went into freefall.

Just weeks later, worried Northern Rock savers besieged the bank's branches, queuing round the block to withdraw their cash. It was the first run on a British bank in more than 100 years. A year later, Lehman Brothers collapsed, almost bringing the entire financial system down with it, and the global economy slithered into a deep and damaging recession.

Five years from the start of the crisis, what has happened to the victims and the architects of the crash? How has your world changed?
We want to hear your stories and experiences of the past five years.
• How was your work or business affected? What did you do to adapt to the circumstances?
• Did the economic gloom make or force you to change career, country or your lifestyle?
• Were you working in the financial sector at the time or during the five years that followed? What has changed?