The SEC wants to hear what hedge fund managers and investors think of the proposed regulations affecting the asset class that were included in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a speech Thursday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that hedge funds “have flown under the regulatory radar for far too long.”

“The lack of a comprehensive database for private funds has made it virtually impossible to monitor them for systemic risk and investor protection concerns,” she said.

Last week, however, in Congressional testimony, Schapiro said she wasn’t sure if hedge fund firms posed a systemic risk to financial systems.

Schapiro also said in her speech that the SEC had been working closely with the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority on hedge fund reporting requirements.

Whatever the position the U.S. regulator may take on the systemic risk issue, the public is being encouraged to go to the SEC Web site and fill out a comment form even before the official regulation comment periods are opened.

Go to SEC public comments page on Dodd-Frank Act

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