Cheyenne Hopkins

Although the Obama administration sought to avoid granting carve-outs as part of the regulatory reform bill, the final law is riddled with them.

After nearly a month of delays, the Senate was expected to pass a bill late Wednesday that would create a $30 billion small-business lending fund.

The Treasury Department unexpectedly announced it would not pick Julie Williams, the No. 2 at the OCC, to serve as acting head of the agency when John Dugan leaves next month.

In five years as comptroller of the currency, John Dugan did not draw the limelight shined on other regulators. But as he gets ready to depart, there is no shortage of opinions on his tenure.

Those looking for clear winners and losers after the conference committee struck a historic final agreement early Friday on regulatory reform legislation are bound to be frustrated.

House and Senate conferees are expected Thursday to add language to the final regulatory reform bill that would strengthen a provision to ban proprietary trading and restrict investment in private-equity firms and hedge funds.

House and Senate conferees were set Tuesday to deal national banks a setback, agreeing on final language that would make it harder for federal regulators to preempt state consumer protection laws.

The House approved a bill 241 to 182 on Thursday that would create a $30 billion fund that community banks could access for small business loans.

The merger of the Office of Thrift Supervision into the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will eliminate some of the key benefits of choosing the charter, and leave a single agency trying to enforce two different sets of rules, observers said.

The Obama administration continued to push its priorities Thursday on what provisions should be included in the final regulatory reform bill.

Though House and Senate lawmakers still have plenty of issues to work out in the final regulatory reform bill, one thing is already clear: The legislation will do little to streamline the fractured financial regulatory framework.

Like it or not, and most large banks don't, the Volcker Rule to ban proprietary trading is now all but certain to be enacted in regulatory reform.

Large banks have repeatedly prevailed in battles to preserve federal preemption in Congress and the courts, but that victory string is likely to be broken by the regulatory reform bill being debated in the Senate this week.

Even as top Senate Banking Committee leaders appear close to striking a final compromise on a regulatory reform bill, some Democrats continue to try and push the legislation further to the left.