Tracking the Conference on Financial Regulatory Reform
The House-Senate Conference to reconcile financial regulatory reform legislation begins today. Track the conference with the House Financial Services Committee or the Senate Banking Committee. The hearing also will be broadcast live on C-SPAN and webcast live at the House Financial Services Committee site.
Tracking the Proposed Financial Regulatory Changes
Last week, President Obama announced sweeping proposed changes in federal financial regulation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Director of the National Economic Council Lawrence Summers wrote an op-ed piece describing the new regulatory structure, called "A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation."
The Final Report of the proposed comprehensive plan has five stated goals: (1) to promote robust supervision and regulation of financial firms; (2) to establish comprehensive supervision of financial markets; (3) to protect consumers and investors from financial abuse; (4) to provide the government tools to manage the financial crisis; and (5) to raise international regulatory standards and to improve international cooperation.
Among many other changes, the proposed plan would create a new federal agency, the "Consumer Financial Protection Agency," with authority to regulate "credit, savings, payment and other financial products and services" and to implement rules to govern consumer financial disclosures and pricing, to define and ban unfair and deceptive acts and practices, and to monitor the regulated financial entities to ensure compliance.
Secretary Geithner testified about the proposed plan before the Senate Banking Committee. Track the plan's progress and additional developments at Financial Regulatory Reform.
