Treasury department's proposed overhaul of the financial regulatory structure: a look at the blueprint and a look ahead

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarize and provide commentary on the US Department of Treasury's Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure, issued on March 31, 2008. Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarizes and comments on the short‐, intermediate‐, and long‐term recommendations laid out in the Blueprint. The short‐term recommendations are to modernize the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, principally by broadening its focus to include the entire financial sector; to address gaps in mortgage origination oversight, principally though creating a federal Mortgage Origination Commission; and to enhance the Federal Reserve Board's current temporary liquidity provisioning process. The Treasury's intermediate‐term recommendations are intended to modernize the regulatory structure and to eliminate duplication. They are to phase out and transition the thrift charter to the national banking charter; to merge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); to establish a uniform, comprehensive regulatory system for, and create a federal charter for, “systemically important” payment and settlement systems; and to create an optional federal charter for insurers. The Blueprint's long‐term optimal regulatory structure envisions an “objectives‐based” regulatory approach in which three primary regulators would be established to focus individually on market stability regulation, prudential financial regulation and business conduct; three types of charters for financial institutions: federal insured depository institutions, federal insurance institutions, and federal financial services providers; the Federal Reserve Board assuming the role of market stability regulator; a prudential federal regulatory agency to regulate financial institutions with some type of explicit government guarantee associated with their business operations; and a conduct‐of‐business regulatory agency to regulate the business conduct of all financial institutions. In addition to the three objectives‐based regulators, the Blueprint recommends establishing two other regulatory entities: a federal insurance guarantee corporation and a corporate finance regulator. Findings – The Blueprint finds that substantial regulatory reform is necessary to respond to significant developments including globalization of the capital markets, innovative and sophisticated new financial products and trading strategies, growing institutionalization of the capital markets, and convergence of financial service providers and financial products. Among the areas where one may see action and debate in the near future are: broadening the scope and membership of the President's Working Group on Capital Markets, adoption of uniform minimum licensing standards and the creation of a mortgage origination commission, further discussion of the terms and conditions attached to non‐depository institutions' access to the Federal Reserve discount window, continuing debate around the possible merger of the SEC and the CFTC, and updating by the SEC of the self‐regulatory organization (SRO) rule‐making process. Originality/value – The paper is a clear and concise summary with commentary from expert securities lawyers.