Do asset managers pose a growing systemic risk to the economy? This month the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Basel committee on banking supervision joined a growing list of regulators who think so.

Among the scenarios the authorities worry about is a bank-style run in which investors, fearful that redemptions by others will cause the value of their funds to fall, rush to pull their money out ahead of the crowd. That, the argument goes, would damage those on the other side of the trade, and cause large price swings in financial markets.

The Financial Stability Board, set up by the Group of 20 leading nations to help oversee the financial system, is among the international bodies to propose labelling the largest asset managers global systemically important financial institutions, which would lumber them with stringent regulations and capital requirements hitherto visited only on the biggest insurers and banks.