Obama to tighten financial regulations
January 25, 2009
US President Barack Obama plans to tighten the US financial regulatory system, introducing stricter rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the new Democratic administration wants to eliminate conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies that gave top investment grades to new and unproven financial instruments that have been a source of market turmoil.
The administration is likely to propose new federal standards for mortgage brokers and bolster the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission to make it more involved in supervising the underwriting standards of securities that are backed by mortgages, the report said.
The government also wants to require that derivatives like credit default swaps, a type of insurance against loan defaults that were at the centre of the financial meltdown last year, be traded through a central clearinghouse, The Times noted.
© 2009 AFP
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