June 23, 2009

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are moving to tighten U.S. financial regulation to prevent another banking and market crisis.Changes will affect banks, hedge funds, exchanges and other segments of the financial services industry. The administration on June 17 unveiled a broad reforms package, covering some of the major issues listed below.

Firms whose business models could be at risk under proposed changes are listed below under "political risk exposure"The Obama administration is proposing to put the Federal Reserve in charge of supervising systemically important and inter-connected firms.The Fed would monitor systemic risk, under the Obama plan, together with a council of regulators that would replace the President's Working Group on Financial Markets.