New regulation and the GAO

rdan

GAO has a report on regulation deficiencies of financial markets:

Several key changes in financial markets and products in recent decades have highlighted significant limitations and gaps in the existing regulatory system.

• First, regulators have struggled, and often failed, to mitigate the systemic risks posed by large and interconnected financial conglomerates and to ensure they adequately manage their risks.
• Second, regulators have had to address problems in financial markets resulting from the activities of large and sometimes less-regulated market participants—such as nonbank mortgage lenders, hedge funds, and credit rating agencies—some of which play significant roles in today’s financial markets.
• Third, the increasing prevalence of new and more complex investment products has challenged regulators and investors, and consumers have faced difficulty understanding new and increasingly complex retail mortgage and credit products.
• Fourth, standard setters for accounting and financial regulators have faced growing challenges in ensuring that accounting and audit standards appropriately respond to financial market developments, and in addressing challenges arising from the global convergence of accounting and auditing standards.
• Finally, as financial markets have become increasingly global, the current fragmented U.S. regulatory structure has complicated some efforts to coordinate internationally with other regulators.