Light in the Shadows? the Fsb Vs. the European Commission's Attempts to Illuminate Shadow Banking

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the Financial Stability Board was tasked with monitoring shadow banking, understood as non-bank credit intermediation activities. It has produced annual macro-mapping reports– based on national Flow of Funds and Balance Sheet data – and last year, a set of policy recommendations to strengthen oversight and regulation of shadow banking. In parallel, the European Commission is also contemplating reforms of European shadow banking. Starting from the premise that shadow banking is a moving target, perhaps even more so than banking itself, this paper provides a comparative analysis of the FSB – European Commission proposals, asking how monitoring activities and policy thinking has kept pace with shadow banking developments? This comparative approach allows for theorizing the politics of multilevel governance of market-based finance, set against the ongoing discussions of Banking and Capital Markets union. The result is not entirely encouraging.