Margin lenders CommSec and St George Bank made record numbers of margin calls on Monday night and after yesterday’s All Ordinaries 409 point drubbing, with another record in the making last night.CommSec managing director Matt Comyn, speaking late yesterday morning, said: “Yesterday (Monday) when the market closed we had to process around 800 margin calls, which would be the maximum we have ever had to face.”He later told The Age that margin calls for yesterday were around 2100.“Usually when there is some volatility you would get 100 or a maximum of 200 calls; last week we got up to around 500 on Wednesday and Friday, and to have two days in close proximity to each other with that number of margin calls is very unusual.”Comyn did add though that the 800 margin calls on Monday represent less than one per cent of the overall number of clients.“Still at the moment, about 60 per cent (of margin calls) are depositing extra funds.”Of the borrowers receiving margin calls, Comyn said only about 20 per cent required shares to be sold, and a tenth of this number was a forced sale by CommSec to reduce exposure.“You see a lot of people taking action proactively when they are approaching margin calls, and not actually requiring the margin call as by the time we have contacted them they have already taken action.“There are new entrants coming into the market, but not at levels that we would have expected.”St George Bank acting head of margin lending Paul Lewis said the bank made about 400 margin calls. He said the number of forced sales was “very small”.Lewis said: “Most of our clients have been able to look after themselves. A very small number are selling stock.” Westpac said less than five per cent of margin lending customers received margin calls over the past month, representing about two per cent of the total margin lending book. The bank said the margin loan portfolio was conservatively geared at below 50 per cent.For the overall market, margin calls increased four-fold for the September quarter 2007 over June according to the Reserve Bank of Australia, to one margin call per 1000 clients This is the highest quarterly margin call level since December 2004.The aggregate credit limit increased 8.5 per cent in the September quarter 2007 to $74.6 billion, with the value of the underlying security priced at $90.4 billion, up from $87 billion. The number of client accounts grew by 7000 to 193,000 over the same period.The RBA will publish industry data on margin lending for the December 2007 quarter later next month.