US Congressional negotiators have agreed the Wall St Reform Bill, which will now receive Congressional approval this week and is expected to be signed into law by President Obama on or before July 4. The general response to the final form of the Bill, by US financial markets on Friday, was that it wasn't as tough as feared.The key provisions of the bill are:• Banks will be able to keep most of their swap dealing activities in-house but swap and derivative dealing associated with agriculture, equity, energy, metals, and uncleared credit default swaps will have to be undertaken via an affiliate.• Banks will be allowed to invest in hedge funds and private equity but such investments cannot exceed three per cent of their tier one capital. • Banks will have to adhere to higher capital standards that will see hybrid instruments excluded from tier one capital.• A Financial Oversight Committee will be established to identify and act on systemic risks.• The FDIC will create a protocol for dismantling troubled financial institutions with such activity being funded by Treasury.• A new financial consumer regulator will be established.• The SEC is to undertake a two-year study to determine the most appropriate method to deal with the conflict of interest that exists for credit rating agencies undertaking structured finance ratings. If no alternative methodology is identified, the SEC must create a board charged with assigning ratings agencies to structured finance rating assignments. • Ratings agencies will face new liability standards for ratings assigned.• Shareholders of financial institutions will gain a non-binding vote on executive remuneration and the Federal Reserve is to set standards on excessive compensation.• There will be no Resolution Fund established to pay for future bail-outs that would have been funded by financial institutions.• However, financial institutions with assets of more than US$50 billion and hedge funds with assets of more than US$10 billion will be levied to pay for the costs of this bill.Any other impositions that may arise from Basel III will be additional to those outlined here.