Commercial banks should be separated from investment banks in order to avoid another crisis like the U.S. is now experiencing, according to former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
âMaybe we ought to have a kind of two-tier financial system,â Volcker, who heads President Barack Obamaâs Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said today at a conference at New York Universityâs Stern School of Business.
Commercial banks would provide customers with depositary services and access to credit and would be highly regulated, while securities firms would have the freedom to take on more risk and practice trading, ârelatively free of regulation,â said Volcker.
Volcker also said international regulations on financial firms are probably an inevitable consequence of the sectorâs current problems.
âIn this world I donât see how we can avoid international consistencyâ on securities regulations going forward, he said. âThe U.S. is no longer in a position to dictate that the world does it according to the way weâve done it.â
Volcker, who ran the Fed from 1979 to 1987, said the financial industryâs problems stem from larger issues. âI donât think this is just a technical problem, itâs a societal problem,â he said. He cited bankers on Wall Street receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses for engineering failed mergers.
âThereâs something wrong with the system,â Volcker said. âWhat are the incentives, whatâs going on here?â
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiDzZwiQSuiE&refer=home
âMaybe we ought to have a kind of two-tier financial system,â Volcker, who heads President Barack Obamaâs Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said today at a conference at New York Universityâs Stern School of Business.
Commercial banks would provide customers with depositary services and access to credit and would be highly regulated, while securities firms would have the freedom to take on more risk and practice trading, ârelatively free of regulation,â said Volcker.
Volcker also said international regulations on financial firms are probably an inevitable consequence of the sectorâs current problems.
âIn this world I donât see how we can avoid international consistencyâ on securities regulations going forward, he said. âThe U.S. is no longer in a position to dictate that the world does it according to the way weâve done it.â
Volcker, who ran the Fed from 1979 to 1987, said the financial industryâs problems stem from larger issues. âI donât think this is just a technical problem, itâs a societal problem,â he said. He cited bankers on Wall Street receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses for engineering failed mergers.
âThereâs something wrong with the system,â Volcker said. âWhat are the incentives, whatâs going on here?â
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiDzZwiQSuiE&refer=home