Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday new regulatory reform rules being implemented will help identify and arrest emerging risks in the financial system.
"We want the system to be as strong possible," said Bernanke, speaking before the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conference.
The Dodd-Frank Act, he said, has corrected many of the problems seen in the shadow banking system, a contributor to the financial crisis, noting new risk retention requirements, tougher underwriting standards, and rules on off-balance sheet accounting, among other things.
But Bernanke warned that the next threat may "come from some other area."
Therefore, regulators, he stressed, will need to be nimble in adapting to an ever changing financial system.
"We are supposed to be alert and alive to changes in the financial system," Bernanke said. "One of the insights of the so-called macro-prudential approach to regulation, which is that the as the financial system is organic and growing, and developing and changing, so the regulatory system has to have mechanisms to allow it to adapt to those changes."
Still, Bernanke was optimistic that regulators would be able to manage any crisis in the future as a result of new regulations under Dodd-Frank. "No matter where the next shock may come from there is a reasonable expectation our system will be stronger and more resilient in the face of that shock," he said.
