Goldman Sachs emerged today as the single biggest creditor of New Century, the subprime US mortgage lender which last night filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after writing $60 billion worth of American home loans.

British bank Barclays is at number 15 in the list of top 50 creditors while HSBC, which is already directly exposed to turmoil in the US subprime market through its US subprime lending subsidiary, is at number 22.

Although the amounts the banks are owed are not revealed in the New Century's Chapter 11 filing, analysts believe that Barclays has lent some $1 billion to the collapsed bank and had been seeking to withdraw its loan before yesterday's bankruptcy.

The creditors list is a who's who of Wall Street bankers with Credit Suisse at number two, Morgan Stanley at number four and Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, UBS and Lehman brothers at numbers six, seven, eight and nine respectively.

Worryingly for the health of the entire subprime market, a fellow US subprime lender, Countrywide Financial is the number ten creditor.

Shares in California-based Countrywide, the US's biggest mortgage lender, were hit last night by growing fears over subprime lending and it emerged that two directors have abruptly quit its board. Kathleen Brown, who is also a Goldman Sachs executive, quit late last Friday without explanation although her term of duty was not due to expire until 2009.

Another board member Michael Dougherty, is not standing for reelection at the company’s next annual meeting.

New Century was the one of biggest subprime lenders in the US, originating $60 billion in mortgages last year, second only to HSBC.

It is unclear how much creditors will recover in the bankruptcy proceeding. The company has earlier said that it had $17.4 billion in credit lines from investment banks but most of those debts are secured on New Century's loans to customers which are of uncertain value. Creditors such as Barclays, which declared New century in default earlier this month, had begun seizing the loans or auctioning them off in the past two weeks.

The demand for these packages of loans and the price they receive will indicate how much creditors such as Goldman and Barclays will have to write off.

Barclays had earlier indicated that although it has provided a credit line of some $1 billion to New Century, only a small proportion of this is unsecured.

Today it insisted: "The vast majority of our exposure to all US subprime lenders is fully collateralised and short term, pending distribution. We do not anticipate any material losses to arise from our exposure to the sector.”

New Century aims to liquidate itself over the next 45 days in auctions for its three principal assets: the platform it used to make home loans, the operation that serviced mortgages and the interest it held in pools of loans sold to investors.

Carrington Capital Management has agreed to buy the servicing business for $139 million, while Greenwich Capital Financial Products has agreed to the pool of New Century's loans for $50 million

That leaves New Century’s mortgage origination business but this may not attract interest since it has not been accepting loans for the last three weeks.

The bankruptcy proceeding, however, may not be the last word for some executives and board members at New Century. The company and its officials are the subject of two federal investigations and numerous class-action lawsuits.

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