11:07 A.M. EDT
SECRETARY GEITHNER: Good afternoon. I want to call the Financial Stability Oversight Council meeting back to order. We begin our open session now. And I would like to make just a few introductory remarks before we get to our agenda.
Over the past few months, we have made very significant, concrete progress towards reforming the financial system, both here in the United States and internationally.
In the international area, we have established a global agreement on capital and liquidity standards, which has been affirmed by the leaders of the G-20, meetings by the heads of state of the G-20 countries. And this agreement will help promote stability across the global financial system, and it places US firms, which are comparatively well-capitalized, in a very strong competitive position.
We are also moving towards convergence internationally on consistent, non-discriminatory regulation and oversight of derivatives markets and hedge funds.
At home, here in the United States, we have begun to build this Council into a lasting institution for collaboration.
We have published an integrated roadmap for implementation, reflecting both our shared responsibilities and our individual statutory mandates and requirements. And we have adopted best practices on transparency so that our collective implementation efforts will provide opportunity for the public to understand our decisions and help participate in shaping those decisions.
And in that context let me note that we have received thousands and thousands of comments on the two initial requests for comment we've put out. And I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to offer your views and perspectives, and one of the great strengths of our process in the United States is you'll be able to see these regulations in draft before they are finalized. And that helps make sure that the people around this table in this room are better informed about how to make sure we're achieving the objectives of the law, of the regulations, making them work in ways that are practical.
The members of this Council have made a lot of progress in moving quickly to begin the process of rule-writing and to bring more clarity and certainty to our financial markets.
Now just looking forward in the next few months, the Council is going to make a set of decisions that are going to be very consequential to the implementation of the financial reform bill.
First, in January, the Council is going to propose a rule governing the designation of non-bank financial institutions. This critical step will help enable the Council to place under heightened oversight all financial institutions – not just banks – that could pose a threat to our financial system.
Second priority ahead, by the middle of next year, the responsible agencies will have outlined rules designed to bring comprehensive oversight to derivatives markets, strengthening and bringing transparency to a part of the financial system that of course played a very important role in this particular crisis.
Third, we are going to work to bring greater clarity to the new authority the law provides to provide for an orderly liquidation of a major financial firm that faces the risk of failure. This authority, this resolution authority, that was absent during the financial crisis is designed to help protect taxpayers from bearing the costs of irresponsible behavior, to help limit the risk of collateral damage when firms make mistakes and to help reduce the moral hazard risk that we all live with in this financial system.
Fourth, we are looking to bring transparency to mortgage disclosure forms and working to simplify credit card agreements to help, again, protect consumers better and help them make more informed financial decisions.
Those are a list of four priority items for the coming months just so you know what's ahead and in today's meeting, in this open session, we're going to do three specific things.
First, we're going to listen to a briefing, an update, on the work underway to address a range of problems, very important problems, in the mortgage documentation and foreclosure process. Then the Council's going to turn to a discussion of designation criteria for financial market utilities and vote on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking relevant to that designation.
And finally, we have two procedural votes, which I'm going to come to.
Let me just end by thanking, again, the work of the members of this Council and their staffs who have taken on an enormously challenging set of burdens and are doing an excellent job getting this process of putting the reform in place. And I compliment them for that. So we turn to the mortgage foreclosure process and I want to turn the floor to Michael Barr who is the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions and ask Michael to give us an update on the work of the task force in that area.
11:12 A.M. END
To view the approved resolutions from today's Financial Stability Oversight Council meeting, please visit link.