Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, has called for banks to adopt more stringent accounting practices, accept tougher regulation and give greater power to risk managers, in a trenchant analysis of the causes of the financial crisis and how they might be remedied.

In an article written for today’s Financial Times, as the Obama administration prepares to rewrite the rule book governing the US banking industry, Mr Blankfein outlines seven areas of misdemeanour – ranging from “complexity [getting] the better of us” to the “outsourcing of risk management” to ratings agencies.

Two days before he and other Wall Street bigwigs are due to testify before a Congressional committee, Mr Blankfein calls for the elevation of risk and control disciplines within the nation’s banks.