The growing divergence of the post-crisis regulatory agenda threatens to result in “extremely high” costs for the global financial services market, a top regulator has warned. His comments come amid a growing dispute over how rules being drawn up by national regulators will impact foreign jurisdictions.

Speaking at banking operations conference Sibos in Osaka, Japan on Wednesday, David Wright, secretary general of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, said regulators globally may agree "conceptually" on a number of key reforms, but the "big test" is whether they will implement the reforms consistently. "The danger we face is adjustment costs and frictional costs - these could be extremely high," said Wright, who highlighted the global reform of the over-the-counter derivatives market and accounting rules as two areas where regional implementation is increasingly diverging.