The financial intermediation industry is currently undergoing a complete regulatory reform - yet there is nobook which analyses the principles behind the new regulations and their direct costs to companies. Financial Regulation critically analyses the motivations of regulation and looks at risk and its sources and supervision. It discusses current trends in financial regulation based on capital requirements, their likely direct and indirect costs and their potential benefits as well as their undesirable consequences. It also offers a critique (from a free market point of view) of the concept of regulation via capital requirements and the new developments for controlling banks (namely Basel II).