Nearly 40 years after Neil Armstrong conveyed the significance of the first Moon landing with the immortal phrase "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", academics at French business school Edhec have invoked the same spirit when analysing how financial regulation must be changed.

A "single minor change" to the Basel II accord on capital adequacy would have prevented the need to inject billions of dollars of public money into financial institutions and could help avoid further bailouts and restore confidence in the battered financial sector, according to Edhec.