Bernanke blames subprime on public, private sector

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday that regulatory mistakes were partly to blame for the subprime mortgage mess, although the private sector also bore responsibility and both would need to help fix the problem.

"What the Fed is trying to do right now is encourage the private sector -- the servicers and the lenders -- to scale up their efforts to address this tidal wave of foreclosures that otherwise would occur," Bernanke told the U.S. House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee.

(Reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by James Dalgleish)