Reuters reported this afternoon that negotiators had reached a deal on the Basel III reforms for international banking, and that on the key question of capital requirements, the range would fall in between 7% and 9%. The press release from the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision puts that squarely on the low end.

Regulators have competing goals, or at least goals that distract from one another. They want to ensure price transparency for every trade, and exchanges or clearinghouses as the mechanism. But they also should want to increase the swap participants, so that the market doesn’t get concentrated, adding to risk.

This could end well, or with literally no meaningful changes at all. Banks are placing a lot of money to ensure the latter.

enate candidate Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL) has come out expressing support of a measure mandating big bank break-up, albeit with an emphasis elsewhere.