Risk Professional: FSF renamed - but same same.

Whilst using its own statements as justification for attacking non-members as so-called "uncooperative tax havens" the G20 also renamed The Financial Stability Forum as The Financial Stability Board.

It's a talking shop for representatives of Treasury departments - mostly those from OECD countries.

The group decided to include all G20 members, and the EU plus Spain. Quick-thinking readers will have worked out that, as the leading members of the EU are also prominent in the G20, they get more than one vote on the FRB.

Russia has already said that to become a member, it will need to change national laws.

So, bearing in mind that the reality of the FSB's non-independent status is no longer a secret, its head, Mario Draghi,

Draghi is a member of the European Central Bank's governing council.

But although the driving forces behind the FSB will be the same old same old, it will gain a new focus. It will not be just a "me too" producer of reports to corroborate the OECD and FATF in their attacks on "tax havens" but rather to work on developing common approaches to the management of the banking sector.

For that, then, it should, arguably, be a fully-fledged division of The Bank of International Settlements, and not an arm of the OECD and its cohorts.

There is no doubt that global regulation is needed - but that's what the BIS does.

So if the FSB is now going to be sent out to produce reports supporting how the OECD - or even the Gx - thinks the banking sector should be regulated, it will, again, have no credibility.

If anyone else works out what it's doing, that is.