Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said sweeping new “rules of the game” are required to make sure the financial system is tightly enough regulated that it cannot again threaten the entire economy, Reuters reported.

The failures of the past 11/2 years show that tinkering at the margin won’t work and that wholesale changes to impose a single systemic regulator for participants in the financial system are necessary, he said in prepared remarks for delivery to the House Financial Services Committee.

“The new rules must be simpler and more effectively enforced and produce a more stable system … that is able to adapt and evolve with changes in the financial market,” Geithner said.

CNNMoney.com, citing financial experts, said the regulations are expected to include the establishment of a regulator to monitor system-wide financial risk and the imposition of stricter rules on so-called credit default swaps and other financial instruments that helped throw the markets in turmoil.

Policy-makers want to improve the oversight of the financial system now rather than wait until the crisis is over, administration officials told Bloomberg on condition of anonymity.

“We have a moment now where there is broad-based will to change things that people did not want to change in the past,” Geithner said yesterday in a speech in New York. “We want to begin the process now of trying to build consensus while people recognize and are feeling so acutely the damage caused by those basic failures in regulation.”

The treasury secretary will also call for stronger protections against financial fraud for consumers and investors, an elimination of the gaps in oversight among regulatory agencies and stepped-up coordination with international counterparts, Bloomberg said.