bETTER REGuLATIon AGEnDA The financial crisis of 2008–9 called the regulatory reform agenda in some parts of the world into serious question. In the middle of the deepest economic downturn, plans for regulatory reform were overtaken by acute economic problems such as falling demand and lack of access to credit. Coupled with this, the economic downturn itself was seen as having been brought about at least to some extent by a failure of governance, market discipline and regulation and supervision. Hence there was little public sympathy with arguments that regulation was too intrusive or deterred business growth, especially in economies most affected by the ‘credit crunch’