Boston Fed Chief Rosengren Calls For Crackdown on Broker-Dealers

“I want to take a moment to acknowledge that I join you from a community in Boston that on Monday endured a terrible and profoundly cruel tragedy at the Marathon,” Rosengren told the audience at the 22nd annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies. “My thoughts are with the many people who were wounded, with those — including Boston Fed staff — who were uninjured but at the scene, and most of all with the families and friends of those whose lives were lost.”

Rosengren told conference-goers that maintaining financial stability has been a key focus since the mortgage meltdown.

But Rosengren said tougher regulations have not been applied to money market mutual funds and broker-dealers, whose failure was at the center of the financial crisis.

Specifically citing the failure of prominent broker-dealers Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers at “critical junctures during the crisis,” Rosengren said: “Despite the central role that broker-dealers played in exacerbating the crisis, too little has changed to avoid a repeat of the problem, I am sorry to say. In short, I firmly believe that a reexamination of the solvency risks of large broker-dealers is warranted.”

Because little has changed with regard to broker-dealers, Rosengren direly concluded: “The status quo represents an ongoing and significant financial stability risk.”

To remedy the situation, he suggested: “In my view, then, consideration should be given to whether broker-dealers should be required to hold significantly more capital than depository institutions, which have deposit insurance and pre-ordained access to the central bank’s Discount Window.”