The House is expected today to vote on Senate-approved legislation aimed at easing the post-crisis financial rulebook, the Wall Street Journal reported. The bill represents the most significant bipartisan effort to relieve small and regional lenders from a number of restrictions tied to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law. If it is passed as expected, President Donald Trump could sign the legislation into law as early as this week. GOP House leaders agreed to advance the bill only after Senate leaders promised to vote on a follow-up package of bills favored by the House — but not included in the Senate bill — aimed at making it easier for companies to raise cash. Read more. (Subscription required.)
In related news, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are considering whether to add a measure that would ease one of Wall Street’s most hated post-financial crisis rules to a must-pass spending bill, Bloomberg News reported. The move to change the Volcker Rule’s ban on proprietary trading may be included in next year’s budget for financial regulators. The measure, which passed the House earlier this year, would put one regulator in charge of the rule’s implementation, instead of five, potentially making it simpler for banks to comply with it and to lobby to alter it. Firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been lobbying Congress to make such a change for years. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services is to begin work on a budget for agencies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on Thursday. Read more.