NEW YORK, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - President Barack Obama called for reforms to banking regulation in the U.S. and globally in a speech on Wall Street on Monday, and accused some bankers of failing to learn lessons from the financial crisis.
The president's speech comes a year on from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, which had been Wall Street's fourth-largest bank. The collapse was one of the main triggers of a series of global financial failures.
"It was a collective failure of responsibility in Washington, on Wall Street and across America that led to the near collapse of our financial system one year ago," Obama said.
He said that while the state bailout has stabilized the financial system, "unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore these lessons."
"They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's."
The U.S. leadership intends to "pass regulatory reform through Congress" to give the Federal Reserve additional powers over key financial companies, and the right to seize banks that pose a threat to the economy, he said.
"It is incumbent on us to put in place those reforms that will prevent this crisis from ever happening again."
Obama also called on the world's leading and fastest-developing economies to work together to improve banking regulation.
"As the United States is aggressively reforming our regulatory system, we're going to be working to ensure that the rest of the world does the same," he said.
