This text examines the US banking system's response to the on-going globalization of financial markets. Based on a micro-political analysis of policy-making, the study reveals a multitude of changes in the interests, coalitions and power constellations among private and public sector actors and institutions in the US financial system, in the absence of any macrostructural adjustment. These changes opened alternative channels for policy-making and eventually led to substantial adjustments in the regulatory framework governing US financial markets by circumventing traditional mechanisms for policy-making.