Yellen frets US may not be able to handle new risks

U.S. outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen departs at the end of a news conference, her last planned public remarks as Fed Chair, after a two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, U.S. December 13, 2017. REUTERS

HONG KONG: Former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen warned the US might struggle to cope with problems as lending risks migrate to non-financial institutions from banks.

“We are more attentive to the emergence of risks outside the banking sector, but it’s unclear that we actually, at least in the United States, have appropriate tools to deal with these,” Yellen said at a panel discussion at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum (NEF) in Singapore.