CFTC and SEC meet to co-ordinate activities

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will hold joint meetings early this month to address regulatory overlaps and streamline regulation of financial instruments.

The meetings are to be held on September 2 and 3 and follow the Obama administration's June white paper on financial regulatory reform, which called for the two bodies to harmonise their operations. After receiving responses from market participants, the agencies will write a report to Congress by September 30, detailing their recommendations.

The white paper stipulated that the regulators' report should include recommendations "that would harmonise regulation of futures and securities". It should also identify "all existing conflicts in statutes and regulations with respect to similar types of financial instruments and either explain why those differences are essential to achieve underlying policy objectives with respect to investor protection, market integrity and price transparency or make recommendations for changes to statutes and regulations that would eliminate the differences".

"There are three areas where this review will most benefit the US public: to address gaps between the two agencies' financial regulatory authorities; to assess the effects of regulatory overlap; and to bring appropriate consistency to the two agencies' regulation over similar products, practices and markets," CFTC chairman Gary Gensler explained.