The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday explained how it  is changing its supervision practices to keep pace with the world's most   sophisticated banking companies.   
Special teams of supervisors have been assigned to the 20 U.S. and 10  foreign banking companies that are heavily involved in nontraditional   businesses, including securities underwriting and dealing, derivatives   trading, and loan securitization.     
  
"The rapid evolution and growing complexity of banking and financial  markets calls for continuing refinement of the Federal Reserve System's   supervisory approach to ensure the oversight ... is effective,   comprehensive," and nonintrusive, according to a letter sent to examiners   and select bankers.       
The Fed also wants its supervision of these "large, complex banking  organizations" to be consistent. So these special teams of examiners will   compare a bank's operations to a group with similar business lines,   characteristics, and risk profiles.     
  
The Fed said this "portfolio approach" will help identify outliers and  industry trends. 
"Ongoing advances in information technology have increased the speed,  complexity, and volume of financial transactions, and thus have heightened   the potential for swift changes in the risks confronting these   institutions," the Fed said in a release.     
The Fed also said its new information system, the Banking Organization  National Desktop, will be introduced next year to let supervisors easily   swap information electronically.