Financial Stability and Prudential Regulation: A Comparative Approach to the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Germany

Financial stability is one of the key tenets of a central bank’s functions. Since the financial crisis of 2007-2009, an area of hot debate is the extent to which the central bank should be involved with prudential regulation.

This book examines the macro and micro-prudential regulatory frameworks and systems of the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Canada and Germany. Drawing on the regulator frameworks of these regions, this book examines the central banks’ roles of crisis management, resolution and prudential regulation. Alison Lui compares the institutional structure of the new ‘twin-peaks’ model in the UK to the Australian model, and the multi-regulatory US model and the single regulatory Canadian model.

The book also discusses the extent the central bank in these countries, as well as the ECB, are involved with financial stability, and argues that the institutional architecture and geographical closeness of the Bank of England and Financial Policy Committee give rise to the fear that the UK central bank may become another single super-regulator, which may provide the Bank of England with too much power. As a multi-regional, comparative study on the importance and effectiveness of prudential regulation, this book will be of great use and interest to students and researchers in finance and bank law, economics and banking.

Alison Lui is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the Liverpool John Moores University.