Several parties have put forward reasons why over-the-counter markets should move to exchanges, but the most powerful figure to back the reforms was the new chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler.

He said two weeks ago: "We must implement two complementary regulatory regimes: one focused on the dealers that make the markets in derivatives and one focused on the markets themselves. Only with these two complementary regimes will we ensure that federal regulators have full authority to bring transparency to the OTC derivatives world and to prevent fraud, manipulation and other types of market abuses, as well as to impose position limits to prevent the burdens of excessive speculation."