Federal officials are getting ready to look closely at insurance regulation while crafting a “blueprint for an improved U.S. financial regulatory structure.”
David Nason, U.S. Treasury assistant secretary for financial institutions, described the thinking that will go into the blueprint today in London, in remarks delivered before the City of London Corp.
The Treasury Department recently published a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on questions related to regulatory structure reform.
Since then, the department has received more than 350 comment letters, Nason said, according to a written version of his speech.
“This level of participation in the department’s study highlights the importance and complexity of our task,” Nason said.
Because “many political and parochial concerns” will lead to resistance to major changes, the department will propose some concrete, “intermediate steps” toward improving the financial services regulatory structure, Nason said.
But the department also wants to propose “broad ideas for an optimal regulatory structure to match the globally integrated U.S. financial services industry,” Nason said.
The broader proposal “will recognize the global nature of our capital markets, the greatly increased complexity of financial products, the importance of technology to the financial services sector, and the importance of consumer and investor protection in the provision of financial products, Nason said.
Most of the current U.S. financial services regulatory structure has been knit together over many years, Nason said.