President Donald Trump signed legislation paring back Dodd-Frank on May 24, following through on campaign promises to reform postcrisis banking regulation that Republicans have long criticized as harming community financial institutions.
"They fixed it or at least have gone a long way toward fixing it," Trump said at a signing ceremony.
Speaking off the cuff, Trump mentioned that there is room to cut regulations for large financial institutions as well, adding that they face a "brutal maze" of regulations.
"We'll have to start looking at that," Trump said.
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview that there has been no discussion of such a review between the White House and Congress. He said that the next financial regulatory reform package will address capital formation.
"We're also looking across the board at all kinds of reforms but I wouldn't single out either large or small institutions, we're looking at all institutions," Crapo said.
Trump's remarks were overshadowed by news that the U.S. had canceled its planned meeting with North Korea. He joked that the Dodd-Frank revision bill's signing was "a big deal, until this came up."
Dodd-Frank reform became a topic of heavy speculation after the 2016 election when Republicans took the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Shortly after taking office, Trump told the banking industry that he aspired to do a "very major haircut" on the Dodd-Frank Act and attacked the legislation for instituting heavy compliance requirements that made it difficult for small businesses to get loans.
But Trump made few policy recommendations on how to loosen regulations, and his administration more than once entertained the idea of reviving the Depression-era Glass-Steagall bill to break up the largest banks.
In the U.S. Senate, Crapo attempted to broker a deal with the committee's top Democrat, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, that would address bank regulatory relief. After talks collapsed, Crapo turned to moderate Democrats who had already been drafting a bill that would offer some relief for midsize and regional banks.
The final package, approved by the Senate in March with 17 Democrat votes, adjusts the regulatory thresholds for added supervision and provides an off-ramp to companies meeting a "community bank leverage ratio."
When the bill reached the House, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, protested that it did not include more provisions previously passed by his Financial Services Committee. But Hensarling ultimately relented, and the bill went to a floor vote without any changes. The House passed the legislation May 22 in a 258-159 vote.

