Biden taps former financial regulator to head SEC

WASHINGTON - US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said that he will nominate Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator and Goldman Sachs executive, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Gensler, currently a professor of MIT Sloan School of Management, served as chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2014 and earned a reputation as a tough regulator.

Biden also plans to nominate Federal Trade Commission member Rohit Chopra, who helped set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) after the 2008 financial crisis, to serve as the next director of the CFPB, Biden's transition team said in a statement.

Both nominees will be subject to Senate confirmation. They were praised by Elizabeth Warren, the liberal Democratic senator from Massachusetts who advocates tougher financial regulation.

"For too long, our banking regulators have behaved like they work for the financial institutions they regulate - not the American people. But big change is coming," Warren wrote Monday on Twitter, adding that Biden could not have made two better picks to lead the SEC and CFPB.

"Gary Gensler and I worked together after the 2008 crisis to hold Wall Street accountable. He is a tenacious regulator who stood up to the industry titans to rein in their risky behavior. He will be an excellent SEC Chair during this economic crisis," Warren said.