As Japan braces itself for an unprecedented surge in divorce rates, a bank is offering low-interest “divorce loans”, tailored specifically for those who find themselves on the brink of singledom once more.

The loan, which goes on sale this week from the Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank, is aimed principally at Japan’s ageing male workforce and exploits a growing atmosphere of terror among the menfolk of the country’s largest generation - the baby-boomers born between 1946 and 1948 who are now approaching retirement age.

Known as Re because of its supposed ability to help people to restart their lives, it offers an alternative to the financial misery faced by Japanese divorcees – vast debts run-up at interest rates of about 20 per cent.

The loan, available to people between the ages of 20 and 65, will offer up to five million yen (£23,000) at a rate of about 5.8 per cent, allowing them to spread the costs more comfortably.

The divorce rate in Japan has been climbing steadily across all age groups, but has risen strikingly among the late-middle-aged and often coincides with the husband’s retirement.

After years of workaholic toil, salary-men are finding increasingly that what should have been a gentle slide into pensioned-off relaxation has become a nightmare of household anguish. They retire to find families that barely know them and wives who have grown used to life without them.

Since 1975 divorce between the long-term married couples of Japan has risen 16-fold to about 5,000 cases a year – before the baby-boomers began to retire. But suddenly, a year ago, divorce rates among those approaching the age of 62 fell away sharply, with women inexplicably becoming intolerant of their husbands.

The abrupt change in attitude came in advance of an alteration to the law this year that allowed divorcing women to claim up to half of their exhusbands’ company pensions.

After biding their time for April 1 and the introduction of the new law, the divorce rate soared to 23,355 cases in that month alone, rising for the first time in 13 months. The Japanese divorce process has historically involved fairly high legal costs for both sides, to the delight of loan-sharks and other high-interest lenders.

Some banks have begun looking into a loan aimed at women on the edge of divorce, arming them with the funds to fight for compensation in court and allowing them the opportunity to pay off the loan from their settlements.

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