World leaders in the US Saturday set an end of March deadline for concrete proposals on tightening global financial regulation and oversight while boosting market transparency, a source close to the G20 talks said.
The heads of state and government from the world's 20 largest economies are to task their finance ministers with drawing up a series of proposals and recommendations to be put forward by March 31.
Six areas will be specifically targeted: regulating those areas of the financial markets which have exacerbated the crisis, boosting transparency in the often murky derivatives markets and reforming compensation practices.
The ministers must also evaluate global accounting norms and the financing needs of international financial institutions.
Finally, they must draw up a list of financial institutions whose collapse would imperil the global financial system.
These elements of the action plan were to be published later Saturday in a five-page document accompanying the final communique of the G20 summit.
According to the source, the final communique said that "regulators must ensure that their actions support market discipline (and) avoid potentially adverse impacts on others countries, including regulatory arbitrages."
The leaders also made a "pledge to ... ensure that all financial markets products and participants are regulated or subject to oversight" and they vowed to ward off "illicit financial risks, arising from non-cooperative jurisdictions."
"We will also promote information sharing, including with respect to jurisdictions that have yet to commit to international standards, with respect to bank secrecy and transparency," the communique said.
On the economic front, the leaders also agreed each country should act "as deemed appropriate to domestic conditions," but stopped short of imposing a coordinated international stimulus plan.
"We agreed that a broader policy response is needed based on further macroeconomic cooperation to restore growth, avoid negative spillovers and support emerging market economies and developing countries," the source close to the negotiations told AFP.
