An overview of coordination in International Financial Regulation

Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo gives a nice overview on the topic.

Over the past few decades, international cooperation in financial regulation has generally been pursued in a number of groups that bring together national authorities with responsibility for regulating or supervising in a particular area, or that served as venues for informal discussion. Several of the functional regulatory groups have undertaken initiatives in response to the recent financial crisis. During this period, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) shifted from being more of a discussion forum to serving as a coordinator of these initiatives. The FSB was also the direct line of communication between these groups and the G-20.

He points to a couple of  international forums for fin regulation:

The Federal Reserve actively participates in the FSB as well as in the following international groups:

• In the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, we work with other central banks to promote sound and efficient payment and settlement systems.
• In the Committee on the Global Financial System, we work with other central banks to monitor developments in global financial markets, reporting to the central bank governors of the G-10 countries.
• In the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee), we and the other U.S. bank supervisors work with other central banks and bank supervisory agencies to promote sound banking supervision by developing standards for bank capital requirements and bank risk management, and by promulgating principles for effective bank supervision. The Basel Committee, which doubled its membership earlier this year, now includes supervisors from 27 jurisdictions, including both advanced and emerging markets.¹
• In the Joint Forum, we and other U.S. financial regulators–including bank, securities, and insurance regulators–work with financial regulators from other countries to enhance financial regulation that spans different financial sectors.
• In the Senior Supervisors Group, we and other U.S. supervisors have worked over the past few years with the supervisors of other major financial firms to share information and sponsor joint reviews of risk management and disclosure.
• In bilateral and regional supervisory groups, we have discussed regulatory issues with Europe, China, India, Japan and other supervisors from the Western Hemisphere.

Some of these groups have quite a long history. Both the Committee on the Global Financial System and the Basel Committee date back to the 1970s. These groups are not formal international organizations. They have operated with only a modest support staff–often provided, along with a location for meetings, by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The bulk of their activity is conducted by officials from the national regulators themselves.

The FSB is a relatively new group, established in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1999 as the Financial Stability Forum, with a broad mandate to promote global financial stability. The FSB is an unusual combination of international standard-setting bodies (including those mentioned above) and a range of national authorities responsible for financial stability: treasury departments and ministries of finance, central banks, and financial supervisory agencies. Major international organizations such as the BIS and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also participate. At the request of the G-20 in April 2009, the Financial Stability Forum’s name was changed to the Financial Stability Board, its membership was expanded to add the emerging market countries from the G-20, and its mandate was strengthened.

Hmm.  Interesting tit bits on the topic. What comes striking to me after reading much of the stuff on crisis is this- the problem is not really lack of frameworks/thinking/forums/architecture etc etc on financial regulation. Infact, there is plenty of it and more is to come. The real issue is as Spitzer sums it - the regulators just didn’t want to regulate. The thinking was markets know the best, so let us not try and interfere much.

About these ads