In the past two decades, the major internationally active financial institutions have significantly increased the share of their earnings from derivatives activities.

The House banking committee is working on a separate bill to strengthen regulation of derivatives activities by banks.

Dodd-Frank was clear about its own scope-it does not apply to derivatives activities outside of the U.S.

It would force them to create a plan to get information on derivatives activities of banks quickly in the case of a crisis.

The bill would force a bank's management and directors to approve derivatives activity.

For their part, the banks argue that their examiners already scrutinize derivatives activity.

The report did criticize senior managers at corporations and dealers for not having sufficient knowledge of their firms' derivatives activities.

Nonetheless, we know that many firms' derivatives activities have at least some speculative component for a variety of reasons.

The agency is considering if it should regulate more closely derivatives activities by smaller institutions, municipalities or mutual funds.

The report also criticized several executives for failing to supervise derivatives activity.