Government regulators from the US and Europe laid out their financial reform plans yesterday before a sceptical banking industry, asking financiers for input but adamant that change was coming with or without their support.

Emerging from the two-hour meeting in Davos, Switzerland, as its unofficial spokesman, US representative Barney Frank made it clear that governments were now calling the shots after spending billions to bail out the industry.

Top bankers, by contrast, who came into last week's World Economic Forum buoyed by signs of economic recovery, left somewhat subdued even as they called the closed-door meeting constructive.

"No one got up and said, 'Don't regulate us,'" said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads the US House Financial Services Committee. "It would have been a waste of their time if they did."

The meeting came after days of tension at the talks over plans for stricter controls on the financial industry to limit speculation and avoid a repeat of the 2008 meltdown that plunged the world into recession.

Bankers have protested, saying the US and other countries risk choking off a gradual economic recovery with regulation they see as heavy-handed.

"We are determined to do strong, sensible regulation," Frank said, rejecting any notion that President Barack Obama's administration could sink the economy again with too many new controls on the banking industry. "What we're trying globally to recover from is a total lack of regulation."

"It was the most constructive dialogue I've seen be­t­ween policymakers and industry officials and hopefully that's a base people can build from," said Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of stock exchange operator NYSE Euronext.

"It was the first time I've seen both sides go beyond the rhetoric."