Regulators Move Closer to Oversight of Nonbanks

[ProSense]

Regulators Move Closer to Oversight of Nonbanks

By ANNIE LOWREY

WASHINGTON — The Financial Stability Oversight Council, the country’s top financial regulatory body, moved closer on Tuesday to increasing its oversight of nonbank financial institutions, like hedge funds, private equity firms and insurers.

The 10-member council, headed by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, voted unanimously to adopt a rule that will designate some of those firms as “systemically important financial institutions,” and put them under stronger regulatory supervision.

The rule “is an important tool provided in Dodd-Frank for extending the perimeter of transparency, oversight and prudential supervision over parts of the financial system that can be a particularly important source of credit to the economy and potentially important source of risk,” Mr. Geithner said during the 10-minute meeting.

The oversight council will now begin a three-part process of determining which firms are subject to additional scrutiny from regulators. The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law, which passed in the summer of 2010, automatically put banks with more than $50 billion in assets under stricter standards.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/business/economy/regulators-move-closer-to-scrutinizing-nonbanks.html

[denverbill]

1. That's easy: If it's too big to fail, regulate it. Better yet, break it up and regulate it.