WASHINGTON - US officials will give JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and several other big firms two years to comply with a controversial Dodd-Frank requirement that they push some swaps trading out of the bank.

LONDON - Bankers should be forced to wait until they retire before getting their share windfalls, one of the Bank of England’s most powerful figures urged in June.

BRUSSELS – Interaction between the European Banking Authority (EBA), the pan-EU supervisory body set up at the beginning of 2011, and the new single supervisory mechanism (SSM), now being created as part of the banking union project for the eurozone, “will necessarily be very intense,” according to the vice-president of the European Central Bank. Vítor Constâncio was commenting at a public hearing in Brussels in late May on the implications of the SSM’s creation for the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS).

TOKYO - Japan’s parliament in June endorsed changes in legislation dealing with failed financial institutions as part of efforts by regulators worldwide to avoid a repeat of the global financial crisis.

HELSINKI – The shape of a “richer regulatory Capital Accord for the future” that goes beyond Basel III, was set out by Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker in a mid-June speech that posited a three-level capital structure to increase the resilience of banks. In addition to the tougher equity capital requirements of the Basel III framework, currently being implemented around the world, Tucker made the case for contingent capital instruments (CoCos) – bonds that convert into equity if a bank’s capital ratio falls below a prescribed level – and longer-term bonds that can be bailed-in if the bank fails.

Regulators and industry acknowledge the problem and the dangers, but say it’s up to others to do something about it

The Basel Committee’s expected to issue its complexity paper imminently, but work on standardised approaches yet to begin Global banking regulators meeting in mid-June are expected to approve a consultative paper on the complexity of financial regulation that sets out their reaction to the plethora of critical comment on the topic that flared dramatically last autumn.

US fears about plans to supervise global insurers won’t hold up progress this year. Majority of regulators favour moving ahead

Optimism about EU’s beleaguered regulatory project improves as lawmakers’ behind-the-scenes work seems to bear fruit Revived hopes that the woes of Europe’s radical Solvency II insurance regime will be happily resolved this year have been met by fresh warnings of potential unintended consequences of the new regulation for investors, insurers and regulators.

A proposal will be issued by the Commission this summer. But can it be compatible with national initiatives already in hand? By Melvyn Westlake