South Korea's financial supervisor, the Financial Services Commission, began considering HSBC's application to acquire KEB only in late July, even though HSBC filed the application more than six months ago.

ECONOMIST: HSBC��s difficult decision over Korea Exchange Bank

The third element of our strategy encompasses a range of activities and initiatives undertaken in our role as financial regulator and supervisor, some of which I will describe in more detail later in my remarks.

FORBES: Reducing Systemic Risk

Unable to act as an ongoing supervisor of Asia's financial systems, all it can do is demand reforms that may or may not be carried through (though some, such as opening the region's banks to foreign competition, will be harder to reverse than others).

ECONOMIST: Kill or cure?

But the about-turn on three-month money made it look inconsistent, and the Northern Rock affair has damaged its public standing, even if the government and the Financial Services Authority, Britain's banking supervisor, were also at fault.

ECONOMIST: CSI: credit crunch | The