Twin Peaks Regulation After the Global Financial Crisis: A Reform Model for China?

Abstract The global financial crisis (GFC) has been defined as the worst financial crisis after the Great Depression of the 1930s. Reforms underway, as well as debates in discussion, revolve around both regulatory philosophy and approaches towards better supervisory outcomes. One of the most radical institutional reforms took place in the United Kingdom (UK), where the Twin-Peak model replaced the previous fully integrated regulator – the Financial Services Authority (FSA) under the Financial Services Act 2012. This paper argues that China should also introduce twin peaks regulation, but it is rather based on the resources of risk in its financial sector than the direct GFC challenge. In theory, the core arguments focus on the structure of agencies responsible for prudential regulation and the role played by the central bank as well. The Twin-Peak model has been further examined in terms of regulatory objectives and instruments. By method, this paper is a country-specific comparative study; Australia, the Netherlands and the UK are selected to represent different Twin-Peak models. This paper contributes to the relevant literature in two main aspects. First, it has displayed the principal pattern of the Twin-Peak model after detailing the case studies, including the relationship involving in two regulators, central bank and finance minister in particular. Based on this, second, it becomes possible to design a very specific model to reform China’s current sector-based financial monitoring regime. As far as the author knows, until end-2015, this is the first paper which has proposed such a particular model to China. It is argued that the appropriate institutional structure of market regulation should fit well in with a country’s financial market. Accordingly, the Twin-Peak model will be able to balance the regulatory tasks for the over-concentrated risk in China’s large banking sector but the underdeveloped securities market. Even though, regulatory independence will continue to be challenged.