WHITBY, Ontario - Canada wants its central bank governor, Mark Carney, to become head of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the country’s finance minister said in early October.

LONDON – Implementation by the UK of the Vickers Report, which recommends separating basic consumer banking from riskier investment banking, would be the boldest step in bank regulation taken so far in Europe, according to Andy Baldwin, head of financial services in Europe for professional services firm Ernst & Young.

LONDON – The hedge fund industry has slammed proposals from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the new pan-EU watchdog, over the way it wants to deal with funds and fund managers from outside the bloc in future. In a letter to the Paris-based ESMA, the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), a global hedge fund industry body, says the proposed measures could have the practical effect of preventing EU investors from investing in non-EU hedge funds such as those managed from the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Switzerland.

LONDON – Evolutionary theory may have important lessons for macroprudential regulation, according to a new paper on a topic that is getting increasing attention among regulators and policymakers. It claims important macroprudential implications flow from viewing the financial system as a set of co-evolving populations of institutions, products, strategies and processes.

PARIS – Stricter regulatory frameworks for banks and insurers are “likely to result, at best, in a re-pricing, and at worst, a rationing for companies globally,” according the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s. And European companies will feel the effect more harshly than their US counterparts because they typically rely more heavily on banks for funding relative to capital market sources, the agency says in a research note published in late September.*

LONDON – European plans for regulating auditing firms are likely to be tougher than expected if widespread information leaks in September prove to be true.

WASHINGTON – Developing a robust framework for putting macroprudential policies into effect will be a lengthy process, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

FRANKFURT – Philip Suttle, chief economist with the influential Institute of International Finance (IIF), is sticking to his guns and standing by the IIF’s forecast that the tougher banking regulations resulting from the financial crisis will immensely damage the global economy’s growth prospects.

SEOUL – New core principles for insurance, revised in the light of the global financial crisis, have been adopted by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the body that seeks to develop global standards for insurance.

Supporters claim IFRS spreading round the world; others think US indecision is causing slowdown as ‘carve-outs’ multiply