Frank moves up hearings on Wall Street reform

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Friday announced that he will hold hearings soon on financial regulatory reform amid gyrating markets and fears of a global recession.

{mosads}Frank’s announcement that his panel will look at “broad regulatory and reform for the financial markets” was a shift from last week, when congressional Democrats — immediately after passing a $700 billion Wall Street rescue package — said they would wait until January to dig into their planned overhaul of the financial sector’s regulatory structure.

Frank’s first regulatory overhaul hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21.

The regulatory reform hearing will include an investigation of “financial institution oversight and regulation, systemic risk, and housing finance.” The release said it would be a continuation of July hearings held by the committee that focused on regulatory restructuring and systemic risk.

The hearing “will focus on the extent to which an outdated and weak regulatory system contributed to the current market turmoil and whether adoption of a stronger and more robust financial regulatory system could contribute to a more rapid recovery in the financial markets and the economy,” according to the committee release.

A witness list was not immediately available.

Immediately after the House passed the bailout bill, Frank said the panel would start in January on rewriting “how we finance in America.”

Frank, who led the House Democrats’ negotiating efforts on the massive bailout bill, said the actions Democrats have in mind would be “comparable to what Franklin Roosevelt did in the New Deal.”

Specifically, Frank’s committee will examine the current state of the financial regulatory system, both in the United States and abroad, and ways to measure and limit risk without stifling innovations while improving market liquidity and breadth.

It will also look at the implications of current governmental lending and support facilities for the regulatory structure; proposals to improve the regulatory structure to restore confidence in financial markets and institutions through a stronger system of regulation and oversight; the need for enhanced capital and reserve requirements for financial firms; and the adequacy of current powers and coverage of the existing regulatory structure.