Ex-BoE Chief King Sees 'Real Question' Banks May Be Too Big To Manage

Speaking at the CME Group Global Financial Leadership Conference, former Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King says regulations have done a lot to address the problems created by the financial crisis. One of the key areas where he sees a difference between U.S. and European regulatory reforms in the wake of the crisis involves so-called ring fencing of assets such as derivatives trading that are outside of core banking activities of large retail banks. King, now a professor at New York University, also spoke about regulators who join the companies they regulate. The larger problem, he said, can be when financial services industry executives then become regulators because they are used to seeing the world from a business perspective and can be too mild in their regulation. What is needed above all is a touch attitude similar to that exemplified by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who later became an advisor to President Obama, and Gerald Corrigan, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who now works for Goldman Sachs.