Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in a speech to the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee that reform of the way over-the-counter derivatives are regulated must be “comprehensive and international”.

He said in the speech this morning that: “A comprehensive regulatory framework governing over-the-counter derivatives should apply to all dealers and all derivatives, including interest rate swaps, currency swaps, foreign exchange swaps, commodity swaps, equity swaps, credit default swaps and any new product that might be developed in the future.”

He added that it would be unwise to have a regulatory structure that was inconsistent in different regions of the world. He said that: “We should avoid mandating specific geographic locations for clearinghouses. Mandating a location for clearing may decrease efficiency—such as in capital allocation—and may increase risk. Allowing market participants to choose between robustly supervised clearinghouses allows participants to most efficiently participate in central clearing.”