U.S. SEC© plans tougher oversight of large asset managers

Publisher: Reuters
Author: Sarah N. Lynch

In her speech last Friday, SEC© Chair Mary Jo White announced that the SEC© is developing a plan to increase its scrutiny of the country’s largest and riskiest asset managers.

The new US risk council is assessing whether large asset managers such as Blackrock and Fidelity pose systemic risks to the marketplace if they were to fail. The risk council’s suggested initiatives involve expanded stress testing, more robust data reporting, and increased oversight of the largest asset management firms. The risk council consists of a group of regulators whose job is to police the market for possible risk. The council has the ability to designate large financial firms as “systemic”, a classification that carries greater capital requirements and subjects the firms to oversight by the Federal Reserve.

Do you believe that large asset managers have the potential to impose systemic risks to the market? what are your opinions on increased regulations on some of the world’s largest asset managers?