Financial governance has for the past forty years had a growing global component, most often identified as the ‘international (or global) financial architecture’. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 has revealed problems in this architecture with respect to its division of labour (who is responsible for what) and its output (who actually does what). This paper explores this problem in relation to addressing the ‘too big to fail’ question, which is now rendered in terms of identifying systemically important financial institutions, or SIFIs, at the global level, and of ensuring that disruptions to their activities do not bring down either their home or host financial systems. By examining the recent UK/US agreement on how to wind down SIFIs, we will be able to assess the pressures towards continued globalization of financial governance. In particular, we will assess the competing trade-offs between locating authority over financial governance at the national or global level.
