Soros says financial reform good but too early

Billionaire investor George Soros on Friday said the just-passed U.S. financial reform bill will impose new regulations on the banking system before the banks have recovered sufficiently to cope with new restrictions on their activities.

The banking system still needs to earn its way out of a hole, Soros said at a panel discussion in the tony summer resort town of East Hampton, New York. In that sense the bill has come too early.

While Soros said the bill is good to have it done, he said the new legislation doesn't address the problems in the system.

Turning to the Greek debt crisis, Soros said Greece's debt has to be restructured in an orderly way.

It's already in the price of the bonds, he said.

But the imposition of a haircut cannot happen until Greece has addressed its primary deficit and restored a primary surplus.

Soros joined Elizabeth Warren, professor of law at Harvard University, on the Hamptons Institute panel discussing Restoring the Integrity of the U.S. Financial Markets.

(Reporting by Daniel Burns; Editing by Leslie Adler and Eric Walsh)