Compliance costs soared in the aftermath of the financial crisis with the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act and a new-found fervor by financial regulators.

Two things could work in tandem to bring those costs down significantly in the Trump Era, Sullivan & Cromwell Senior Chairman Rodgin Cohen said Tuesday.

The first would be a revised supervisory approach by the regulators.

A second, and more important change, said Cohen, would be to allow financial institutions some compliance operations done jointly where currently they are spending many millions duplicating the same work: vendor management and anti-money laundering.

“AML costs have skyrocketed (needlessly),” said the attorney, who helps head up the law firm that Jay Clayton left this year to take the helm of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Looking at where compliance costs have risen in the aftermath of the financial crisis, Cohen said consumer practices that went on for years without regulatory interest are now subject to intense scrutiny.