Trump Should Reform Financial Watchdogs. Here’s How: Editorial

News that President-elect Donald Trump’s team wants to hack away at the forbidding tangle of US bank regulation is welcome in the abstract. In practice, though, much will depend on the details. The goal should be simplifying financial oversight more broadly — not just defanging a tough watchdog.

No doubt, the current system is unwieldy. At the federal level — excluding an array of separate state regulators — three entities oversee banks, two supervise markets, one aims to protect consumers and another defends against financial crimes. Many large institutions must submit to all of them. Senior managers of an average bank ...