Organisation of Regulatory Functions:A Single Regulator?

Since the beginning of the financial sector reforms in early 1990s, boundaries between products and intermediaries have been blurring rapidly. The entry of several large government-owned as well as non-governmental financial sector participants in a variety of related domains such as securities trading, investment banking, commercial and retail banking, insurance and asset management which are regulated by independent bodies has posed some unique supervisory challenges for the Indian financial system. The paper attempts to argue that such a system of regulation not only artificially fragments the financial markets but also exposes the system to the very real danger of participants behaving as mini-super-regulators as they seek to optimally allocate capital dynamically between these fragmented market