Regulators around the world have lessons to learn from the subprime crisis and other recent events, including the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns, the head of the US Securities Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

“The regulatory lessons here extend far beyond the SEC,” said Christopher Cox, the SEC chairman, in an interview with the Financial Times. “Subprime only leached into the securities markets after it was already a horrible problem. There was complete breakdown in lending standards, a complete breakdown, one can infer from that fact, in supervisory standards for lending or at least the application of those standards.