The Obama administration's plan to reshape the opaque world of derivatives trading, unveiled on Wednesday, is only a preview of sweeping financial reform proposals that may be announced as soon as next week. The White House and Treasury, responding to the global financial crisis, have firm ideas about tightening oversight of hedge funds, streamlining bank regulation, shaking up executive pay standards and protecting consumers.
But two key components of the administration's approach - policing "systemic risk" and winding down troubled financial firms - are dividing senior officials and lawmakers, which will likely cause delays in getting broad reforms enacted. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a chief architect, acknowledged on Wednesday the proposals might not sit well with everyone. "It's not going to be comfortable for everybody but it's important to do," he told a group of bankers.
The regulatory reform drive comes as economies around the globe continue to reel from a credit market paralysis triggered by a sudden plunge in the value of exotic securities created during the US real estate boom. US President Barack Obama has vowed to pursue changes to prevent another such crisis.
His administration's approach centers on a powerful, new "systemic risk" regulator, likely to be the US Federal Reserve, backed by a council of regulators, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which will also get new powers, according to sources briefed on the plan.
That compromise has emerged after a debate between advocates of centralised financial supervision and skeptics who fear making the Fed too powerful, especially in view of its shaky record in handling troubled insurer AIG. The administration looks poised to put the FDIC at the center of newly streamlined bank regulations. Other agencies' rulebooks will be rewritten to conform with an FDIC standard, preventing banks from shopping around for a lax regulator.
But other bank overseers, such as the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, for now, will not be slated for shutdown, the sources said. As part of its effort, the Treasury will emphasise the need for global co-operation, wary of the risk that financial firms might flee to jurisdictions with looser regulations.
Geithner said on May 8 that Congress would get "the broad comprehensive framework within the next couple weeks, and we hope to move forward quickly with legislation." Democratic lawmakers and the White House want to enact reforms by the year-end, but the deadline looks less realistic as the proposal expands.
"The problem is that as you start adding more new issues, the consensus starts breaking down," said Wayne Abernathy, an executive at the American Bankers Association. Many of the proposals involve sensitive structural changes that threaten existing bureaucracies and cross jurisdictional lines among congressional committees. "Everyone agrees the structure needs to change. The problem is the obstacles of getting people to agree on what the agencies should be. The vested interests are going to be very tough," said Andrew Kuritzkes, a partner at consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
The US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee is expected to hold hearings next month, with an eye toward passing legislation before an August recess, said congressional aides. Deliberations in the Senate will take longer. Democrats have much less control there, needing 60 votes to advance legislation, a challenge that will likely present the administration with its chief obstacle, aides said. One key measure will be to empower the government to seize and resolve the problems of troubled non-bank financial firms so big that their collapse could threaten the overall economy. The FDIC can do this now only for banks.
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