Mary Jo White will step down as SEC chief

WALL Street regulators began an exodus from Washington on Monday as Mary Jo White, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced plans to leave the agency.

The decision makes White, a former federal prosecutor who has served more than two decades in the federal government, the first major Obama administration appointee to step down a f t e r Donald Trump’s upset victory last week. Other financial regulators are expected to follow suit in the coming weeks.

The election of Trump is a game-changer for all financial agencies.

White was expected to leave no matter the outcome of the election. But many Democrats had hoped that if Hillary Clinton won, she would choose a strong proponent of regulation to succeed White, whose policies often reflected a political middle ground. Now, the agency is almost certain to be pushed to the right.

Trump has vowed to dismantle Dodd-Frank, the financial regulatory overhaul Congress passed in response to the 2008 financial cr isis. And although Dodd-Frank will more likely be watered down than repealed, his appoint- ments will no doubt shift the tone and priorities across financial regulatory agencies.

White oversaw a record number of enforcement actions and directed a rapid pace of rule-writing based not only on Dodd-Frank, but on regulations of her own making. Those initiatives were aimed at improving money market fund regulation and the broader asset management industry.

“I think what we’ve done so far has been quite transformative and really modernized that core responsibility,” White said in a recent interview.

Yet White has not completed more than a dozen rules, nor has she formalised a plan to require that financial advisers act in their client’s best interests. Now that these initiatives will fall into the hands of a Republican chairman, they may come off the agenda.