Ben Bernanke: I tried to remortgage but was turned down

“I think it’s entirely possible [that lenders] may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said.

“The housing area is one area where regulation has not yet got it right. I think the tightness of mortgage credit, lending is still probably excessive.”

Mr Bernanke was paid $199,750 last year as head of the Fed, but was handed $250,000 for his first public speaking engagament after stepping down. At a conference sponsored by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi in March, Mr Bernanke spoke for just 40 minutes on what the central bank could have done to prevent the financial crisis.

He is also writing his memoirs , which reportedly landed him a $1m book deal with publisher W.W. Norton & C. The tome, which will be released next year, is expected to cover Mr Bernanke's time leading the Fed and his response to the crisis.

Asked earlier this year whether he had sleepless nights during the depths of the financial crisis in late 2008, he said: "Oh sure, absolutely."

"I was so absorbed on what was happening, and trying to find a response to it, that I wasn't really in that kind of reflective mode," he said.

"Later on, I was kind of like, if you're in a car wreck or something, you're mostly involved in trying to avoid going off the bridge, and then later on you say, oh my God."

During his tenure at the Fed, Mr Bernanke pushed the Fed far into unconventional territory, not only slashing short-term interest rates to zero and keeping them there since December 2008, but providing long-term "forward guidance" assuring investors the Fed would keep rates low for a long time to come.

He served at the Fed from 2002 until this year. He was appointed to two four-year terms as chairman, starting in 2006, and was succeeded by Janet Yellen.

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