USA: recommendations for the reform of the financial regulatory structure

The Committee on Capital Market Regulation - an independent research organisation dedicated to improving US capital market regulation - has published recommendations for the reform of the federal financial regulatory structure. 

The Committee proposes that the US should have no more than three independent regulatory bodies overseeing the financial system, including: the Federal Reserve Bank, a newly created independent United States Financial Services Authority and, possibly, an agency responsible for investor and consumer protection. The Committee notes:

The United States occupies a distinct place in the world, and any decision regarding U.S. regulatory structure must be uniquely tailored to the needs of the United States. However, it bears noting that the vast majority of other leading financial center countries have moved towards more consolidated financial oversight ... [The] overwhelming trend is towards a more consolidated regulatory structure, whether of the three regulator model employed in Australia and the Netherlands (where, in addition to the central bank, one regulator is responsible for prudential regulation, while a second regulator focuses on business conduct in the financial sector) or the more consolidated model employed in Japan and the United Kingdom (where there is a single regulator in addition to the central bank). A rapidly dwindling share of the world’s financial markets are supervised under the fragmented, sectoral model still employed by the United States".