The promotion of clearing as a cure-all, tax on and apology for the over-the-counter derivatives industry is a neat one – but history demonstrates it may not act effectively as any of those things, and specialists worry it could do far worse.

Regulators, when caught on the back foot, habitually rush to put out directives and convince lawmakers to rubber-stamp them at the double. Frequently such measures are ill-thought-out, delivering little more than a short-term injection of credibility and a longer-term expansion of their authority.