Time for ‘Asia-first’ thinking as the US and Europe question financial regulations

Hong Kong this week celebrated the breaking of the 30,000 level on the Hang Seng Index for the first time in a decade. It may well top the peak of 31,958 on October 30, 2007, before the global financial crisis.

Earlier last month, the US Treasury published the third of its reports on the US financial system, with the aim of unwinding many of the tough financial reforms enacted in the post-crisis decade on banking, capital markets, asset management and insurance.

After a decade of slow growth following the tough medicine of the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III reforms, the US and Europeans are beginning to roll back some complex, burdensome regulations. As part of the election promises by the Trump administration, the US Treasury earlier this year issued some core principles on how it proposes to make financial regulation efficient, effective and appropriately tailored.