( sec ) and the commodity futures trading commission with respect to over - the - counter derivatives, the sec with respect to hedge funds and their advisers, and several agencies, including the treasury, the federal deposit insurance corporation, the federal reserve board, and the sec with respect to the resolution of systemically important failing nonbank financial institutions. in addition, the proposal would provide the federal reserve certain new responsibilities for overseeing systemically important financial institutions and payment, clearing, and settlement arrangements. these incremental new responsibilities are a natural outgrowth of the federal reserve ’ s existing supervisory and regulatory responsibilities. through our role as consolidated supervisor of all bank holding companies ( bhcs ), the federal reserve has long been responsible for supervising many of the most important u. s. financial organizations, and in the current crisis several more large complex financial firms – including goldman sachs, morgan stanley, and american express – have become bank holding companies. and the expanded regulatory authority of the federal reserve with respect to payment and settlement systems builds upon our existing responsibilities for supervising certain critical payment, clearing, and settlement systems, such as the depository trust company and cls bank, as well as our historical efforts to reduce risk in such systems through, for example, our payment system risk policy. 4 the authorities that the administration ’ s proposal would provide the federal reserve with respect to systemically important non - bhc financial firms and payment, clearing and settlement systems also are similar in many respects to the authorities that the federal reserve currently has with respect to bank holding companies and payment, clearing, and settlement systems under our supervision. the administration ’ s proposal does call for a more macro - prudential approach to the supervision and regulation of systemically important financial firms and payment, clearing, and settlement systems, including the establishment of higher capital, liquidity, and risk - management requirements for systemically important firms. the federal reserve already has been moving to incorporate a more macro - prudential approach to our supervisory and regulatory programs, as evidenced by the recently completed supervisory capital assessment program. the federal reserve has also long been a leader in the development of strong international risk - management standards for payment, clearing, and settlement systems and has implemented these standards for the systems it supervises. in our supervision of bank holding companies and our oversight of some payment systems, we already work closely with other federal and state agencies and participate in groups of regulators and supervisors such as the federal financial institutions examination council and the president ’ s working group on

, i can mention that, in addition to the enforcement role, we have just announced the creation of new senior level positions with responsibility for markets supervision and policy and risk. supervision will be calibrated to the risks posed by the different firms in the sector and will involve applying the existing rule - book, strengthened as necessary to plug the holes revealed by the crisis. in particular, we will not be slow to implement new stronger rules, being developed as we speak, by international bodies such as the basel committee. despite the extensive powers already available to the regulatory authorities, it would be useful and appropriate to have clarity on a number of additional points ; these are being discussed at present with the department of finance with a view to their inclusion in the proposed legislation restructuring the central bank. one particular area relates to the requirements of confidentiality, which ( as they are currently being interpreted ) seem to go well beyond what is necessary or appropriate for the purpose of ensuring privacy of customers and commercial interests. as things stand, the regulatory staff can end up appearing passive and defensive when called to speak on specific issues in public. a final aspect of safety and soundness to which i would like to refer is the admission of large and complex export - oriented firms into the irish market. i welcome the participation of foreign - owned firms – both those aiming to supply the domestic market and those that are export - oriented – they provide competition and business opportunities. but the crisis has revealed the reputational risks to ireland of having a failure in such an entity. this means that we have to redouble our efforts to ensure that only sound institutions are allowed to enter and that they are comprehensively supervised to ensure that they continue to be sound. i will certainly not allow ireland to become a soft option for firms or activities that are no longer welcome elsewhere. this means more supervisory staff with the necessary skill levels ; these can be paid for by a levy on the supervised firms ( i think we should move towards a 100 % chargeback basis ). i also feel, though, that specific steps need to be taken to ensure that there is no expectation that the state would come in to take exceptional steps to rescue such entities. 3. consumer protection consumer protection cannot and will not be ignored in the regulatory structure. failures here are not as spectacular as a solvency crisis, but can be as damaging to the affected consumers. there will be no downgrading of this aspect of the regulatory work. the statutory codes of conduct for mortgage and sm