Banks and Dodd-Frank Act foes on Capitol Hill, close to achieving their biggest financial-regulation rollback since the 2008 credit crisis, are already looking to next year for more wins.

Wall Street firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and regional counterparts like PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and SunTrust Banks Inc. will be counting on Republican control in both houses of Congress to speed up reversal of what they call the overreach of the 2010 regulatory law.

“We've finally broken through,” said Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, who will be part of a Republican majority next year. “There's opportunity to go further and make other changes.”

Lobbyists will be trying to build on this week's gains, highlighted by the federal budget bill's inclusion of a measure easing a requirement that banks separate some swaps trading with U.S. backstops. Insurers including MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. won a break on how capital requirements will be imposed.

The Republican-led efforts are likely to face fierce opposition from Democrats such as Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Maxine Waters of California, both of whom criticized the agreement on the swaps measure this week. And Republicans, who will hold 54 of the 100 seats in the Senate, will need Democrats on board to advance major bills.

Here is a look at five of the financial industry's top priorities for 2015:

Systemic threshold. Every bank with more than $50 billion in assets is systemically important, according to Dodd-Frank, subjecting them to a lot more oversight. With regulators including Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo and Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry acknowledging the bar may be set too low, industry groups will push lawmakers to boost the threshold. Regional banks such as SunTrust Banks Inc. and Fifth Third Bancorp are pushing for changing the threshold, contending that they don't pose the systemic threat that Wall Street banks do.

Fiduciary duty. Lobbyists are also targeting a rule languishing at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would hold brokers to a fiduciary duty similar to what registered investment advisers have, requiring them to place clients' interests above their own. Republicans pitched the idea of scrapping the requirement during the budget negotiations, according to a Democratic aide who requested anonymity to discuss the talks. It was dropped from the final bill, and may be revisited next year.

FSOC transparency. One of the financial industry's chief complaints about the Financial Stability Oversight Council—a group of regulators established to monitor and address systemic threats—is that the panel does most of its business behind closed doors. In the coming year, the industry will continue pushing efforts to shed light on the group—especially its process for designating firms as complex and interconnected enough to warrant extra oversight.

Consumer Bureau. Bank lobbyists and Republican lawmakers will have their best shot at making changes to the funding and structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since the agency was created under Dodd-Frank. Senator Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican who is in line to take over as Banking Committee chairman, has been a leading critic of the bureau and will spearhead efforts to have its budget subject to congressional appropriations instead of drawn from the Fed and shift it from a sole director to a five-member commission.

Volcker CLO. The industry will renew efforts to water down the Volcker Rule, which was included in Dodd-Frank as a way to bar banks from making risky bets with their own capital and limit their ability to invest in private equity and hedge funds. A bill that would give banks more freedom to trade collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), leveraged financing that funds most corporate buyouts, wasn't taken up by the Senate after passing the House earlier this year. The measure may have a better chance with both houses of Congress under Republican leadership.

Instant Insights /

Banks Eye Further Changes to Dodd-Frank

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