Why Fund Managers Should Escape Regulators’ Overreach

The world’s bank regulators, led by the Federal Reserve and a European group known as the Financial Stability Board, have been arguing for several years that “shadow banking” requires regulation.

It was never very clear how shadow banking was defined, but there were strong indications that the goal was to subject the securities industry to the kind of “prudential regulation” that governs banks. In a statement at the end of last week, the FSB made clear how far its ambitions extend: Any investment fund that manages more than $100 billion in assets would be eligible for banklike regulation.