Fed Chairman Bernanke says central bank working to increase financial system monitoring

WASHINGTON – Chairman Ben Bernanke says the Federal Reserve has broadened its oversight beyond banks and now monitors a wide-range of financial institutions that could hasten another financial crisis.

Bernanke says the Fed is still monitoring banks and other systematically important financial institutions. But it has widened its scope to include the so-called shadow banking system, which includes loans that are turned into securities and sold to investors. It was the breakdown of lending in the area of sub-prime mortgages that helped trigger the 2008 crisis.

He also said the Fed is looking more closely at asset markets and the nonfinancial sector, which includes consumers and businesses