A brief respite

As the holiday season approaches its tempting to begin to relax and look forward to the merriment to come, but the regulators show no signs of taking their foot off the gas. This year saw the biggest round of banking legislation and regulations for a decade, and the signs are this will continue into the new year as the reality of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act becomes clear and banks start to focus on adhering to Basel III.

With all of this big-picture regulatory