Major overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system is needed to strengthen oversight of banks, mutual funds and other large financial institutions and to avoid a similar financial crisis in the future, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations today, as reported by the Associated Press.

His remarks come as the Obama administration and Congress begin working on overhaul strategies before a meeting of leaders from the world’s 20 major economic powers in April.

Bernanke called for legislation that would handle the failure of a huge financial institution in an orderly way, similar to how bank failures are handled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and for better supervision of “too big to fail” companies to prevent them from taking on excessive risk.

He also called for strengthening the infrastructure and policies that govern financial transactions, reviewing regulatory policies and accounting rules to make sure they don’t “overly magnify the ups and downs in the financial system and economy,” and considering the creation of an authority that would specifically monitor financial risk and protect the nation from another financial crisis.