Sefi Zinger Calls for Financial Regulation Review Amid Concentration Concerns

Israel Securities Authority chairman Sefi Zinger called for a review of financial regulation's structure while preserving regulators' independence, speaking Thursday evening at Tel Aviv University. He warned against combining banks and insurers into large financial groups, saying that replacing banking concentration with institutional concentration would not create competition. Zinger said institutional investors manage more than NIS 3 trillion, with nearly 60% concentrated in five groups. He cautioned that larger financial conglomerates could deepen conflicts of interest and make comparing prices and switching providers harder; his remarks outlined concerns rather than an adopted reform.