This volume goes into essential detail in assessing banking and finance regulations, supervision, and prudential and operating standards in the NAFTA countries in a global context. This volume reviews the laws, regulations, and operations of the banking and financial systems of the NAFTA countries. It addresses such issues as the fairness of national treatment accorded to foreign financial institutions, regulatory competition between agencies and system approaches, and the efficiency effects of financial conglomeration. There is an underlying concern with the control of systemic risk and moral hazards that arise in the financial sector, as well as in the payment and settlement system, and from deposit insurance. In view of the interplay of global standards and national politics, this volume gives an overview of global and European-Union (EU) approaches to sound finance (Parts I and II), before taking up regulatory competition and harmonization within and between the NAFTA partner countries (Parts III to V).
