Regulators Consider Requiring Banks to Disclose More About Debt Levels

"The SEC may soon be implementing rules to shed more light on efforts by banks to make their books look better — a practice known as "window dressing." Perhaps the most famous of those tactics was Repo 105, an accounting trick used by Lehman Brothers to move billions in assets off its balance sheet and hide risk from investors. Earlier this year, the SEC queried a number of banks on whether they’d used repurchase agreements — a form of short-term borrowing — in a similar way."