As the crisis has demonstrated, large firms increasingly operate and manage their businesses on an integrated, firmwide basis, with little regard for the corporate or national boundaries that define the jurisdictions of individual functional supervisors, and stresses at one subsidiary can rapidly spread within the consolidated organization.
A consolidated supervisor thus needs the ability to understand and address risks that may affect the risk profile of the organization as a whole, whether those risks arise from one subsidiary or from the linkages between depository institutions and nondepository affiliates.