Commodities Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler continued his campaign to open up over-the-counter trades to public scrutiny, saying on Friday that the more transparent a market is the more liquid and competitive it is.

“I believe that financial reform will be incomplete if we do not bring public transparency to the OTC marketplace,” he said in a speech to the American Bar Association on Friday. “An opaque market, concentrated with a small number of financial institutions, contributed to a financial system brought to the brink of collapse.”

He added, “We now must bring transparency to the derivatives markets. The best way to bring transparency is through regulated trading facilities and exchanges.”

He said he understood why Wall Street banks that deal in OTCs and swaps weren’t keen on transparency, in large part because it threatens their profits. Banks, he said, profit from access to trading information while American businesses and Main Street pay the costs.

He said the market reforms he’s pursuing must address end-user exemption, which he’s opposed to. This end-user exemption, included in the House bill that passed last year, allows big banks to continue trading OTCs and swaps outside of the regulated exchanges. They also don’t have to clear their OTC and swap trades with a regulated clearinghouse.

Clearing trades by a recognized clearinghouse is important because both sides of the trade have to ensure there are enough funds to cover the transaction. Gensler said the exemption could leave as much as 60 percent of the transactions out of the transparency or clearing requirement.

He cited a study by the World Bank, which showed that in the OTC currency futures market, 57 percent of the trades are done between banks, 34 between brokerage-dealers, and only 9 percent between non-financial customers.

In the commodity futures market, the study shows, 50 percent of the trades are done between banks, while dealer-to-dealer transactions comprise 40 percent and non-financial customers comprise only 10 percent.

Gensler contends the World Bank study supports his view that banks and other financial institutions have cornered the derivatives market.