“The head of the regulator that oversees the US’s vast derivatives market has warned that a lack of resources could severely damage his agency’s ability to protect the public from future financial scandals.

“Gary Gensler, outgoing chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that his 680-employee agency, which has an annual budget of $195m, was “sorely underfunded” and needed to have about 1,000 staff in order to police the $450tn swaps and futures market that it regulates.

“‘We do not have the people to do annual examinations of the clearing houses – these very systemically important clearing houses that Congress is saying we have to annually examine,’ Mr Gensler told the Financial Times in an interview. ‘In the enforcement area we definitely don’t have the resources; it’s a concern.’

“Clearing houses, which guarantee deals between two parties, have been at the heart of regulatory efforts to make banks engaged in the vast and fast-growing derivatives market shockproof.”

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Read full Financial Times article here