Top US, UK regulators conduct exercise on big bank failure; part of preventing crisis

Top U.S. and British bank regulators, including Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, have taken part in an exercise to see how they would handle the failure of a large multinational bank and communicate with each other.

The exercise held Monday was part of the regulators' efforts to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis and to end the need for governments to bail out big banks. The officials also included U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

They discussed U.S. and British procedures for regulators to take over and break up big banks that fail, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a news release. The exercise took place at the agency's office in Arlington, Virginia.