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Plans by US President Barack Obama to curb risk-taking by banks are unlikely to adversely affect Asia's risk-averse financial institutions, analysts said.
The proposed measures, which aim to roll back corporate excesses and limit dangerous risk-taking on Wall Street, could even be beneficial to Asia as US banks may have to move their hedge fund businesses to the region, they said.
Obama's plan, described as the largest regulatory crackdown on US financial institutions since the 1930s, would ban the banks from using taxpayers' money to engage in proprietary trading or operating hedge funds and private equity funds.
His announcement on Thursday sent shockwaves across Asian and European stock markets, as investors worried that it would trigger a domino effect among financial regulators worldwide and affect bank earnings.
But banking experts in the region dismissed the market falls as a kneejerk reaction.
While banks in Britain and Europe are studying Obama's proposals to see if they should head the same way, analysts said the resilience demonstrated by Asian banks during the financial crisis proved it was unnecessary for regulators to tighten the reins.
Shane Oliver, an economist with Australia's AMP Capital Investors, said it was unlikely the regulation of Asian banks would be beefed up.
"Asian banks didn't run into the sort of trouble that the US ran into through this crisis and it's unlikely that we'll see radical regulatory change across Asia," he said.
