U.S. government efforts to revive the financial system were producing “immediate stability,” and it is now time to turn attention to much needed regulatory reforms to create a financial system that would be less vulnerable to collapse, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday. The Obama administration is considering a new agency to better protect consumers from practices like those that created the current financial crisis, Geithner told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee. A broad set of regulatory reform proposals should be ready in a few weeks, and a new agency to protect consumers of financial products could be part of the effort, the Treasury chief said. “We are examining the merits of setting up a new independent commission or agency to help provide stronger rules to protect consumers and better enforcement of those rules,” Geithner told the panel. Lawmakers have shown strong interest in adopting a consumer-oriented approach to rewriting rules for banks and financial markets.
