At JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, loans increased 10 percent to $806.2 billion last year, with gains in every category including credit cards and wholesale debt.

On Monday, Trump promised to do “a big number” on the Dodd-Frank Act during a meeting with small-business owners. He said the law had damaged the country’s entrepreneurial spirit and limited access to needed credit, calling it a “disaster.”

One focus will be the Volcker Rule limits on banks making speculative bets with their own funds, Cohn said. Trump is also expected to sign an order to stall the fiduciary rule -- set to take effect in April -- that the Obama administration said would protect millions of retirees from being steered into inappropriate investments that generate bigger profits for brokers.

“There’s so much in Dodd-Frank that just doesn’t make sense,” said Robert Albertson, a principal and chief strategist at Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP. “The dialogue between the financials and regulators had to change.”

The president signaled that he wants a change of direction at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cohn told the Wall Street Journal that one way to do that would be to replace its director, Richard Cordray. That could trigger a legal battle if Cordray refuses to step down.

Likely Opposition

Trump’s deregulation plans will be opposed by Democrats such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, who’s championed the consumer-protection bureau and the stricter bank rules. She’s said Trump plans to use his power to benefit wealthy friends.

“This is what happens when fox meets hen house,” Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and a partner at Jenner & Block, said on Twitter about Trump’s plan.

The changes have nothing to do with Goldman Sachs or any other particular firm, Cohn said in the Wall Street Journal interview. They’re intended to help the U.S. remain the dominant financial center, he said.

Trump’s orders are likely “symbolic” because there’s little he can do directly to alter Dodd-Frank, the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule or the fate of the CFPB, Cowen & Co.’s Jaret Seiberg said in a note Friday. The real change may occur once Trump has named his people to government agencies, the analyst wrote.“The president over the next 12 months gets to put his people in charge of the financial regulators,” Seiberg wrote. “That will then open the door to ease regulatory burden.”