Bankers and regulators in the UK and Asia reacted with anger to warnings from Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, that the rest of the world must follow the US lead on tougher financial regulation.
In London, there was particular fury at Mr Geithner’s claim that the UK had set a “tragic” example through light-touch regulation, with officials arguing that the US’s hands-off approach to derivatives and investment banks before the 2008 crisis had been worse.
Alexander Justham, a senior official at the UK’s Financial Services Authority, told a conference on derivatives: “Clearly he wasn’t referring to derivatives regulation because as far as I can recollect, there wasn’t any in America at the time.”