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NEW YORK. – Mary Jo White, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced on Monday that she will step down two years before the end of her term, clearing the way for President-elect Donald Trump to reshape the way Wall Street is regulated.The SEC, which polices Wall Street and the financial markets, has been a key part of the Obama administration’s effort to rein in big banks following the 2008 financial crisis and prevent future taxpayer bailouts of the industry. The agency has pushed for more oversight of hedge funds and other asset managers and has established rules that make it more difficult for big banks to make risky bets on the markets.

White, a former federal prosecutor, is known for a no-nonsense style and beefed up the agency’s enforcement efforts over the last three years, pushing for more companies to admit guilt and taking more cases to trial. But progressive Democrats were often critical of her efforts, complaining they did not go far enough. White was widely expected to step down no matter who won the election to allow the next president to appoint their own chair.

Trump has already indicated he would usher in a period of deregulation, including dismantling 2010’s financial reform legislation, known as the Dodd-Frank Act. He appointed Paul Atkins, an industry veteran, who has called Dodd-Frank a “calamity” to lead the agency’s transition.

Atkins “is a guy in general who wants to let companies do their thing and not get in the way very much” Ian Katz, a financial policy analyst with the research firm Capital Alpha Partners, said of Atkins.

“You would see a lighter touch on enforcement and a lighter hand on corporate governance issue broadly.”

Atkins served as an SEC commissioner for six years during the President George W Bush administration. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

In addition to replacing White, Trump will be able to fill two openings on the five-member commission. He could also choose to ignore the more than 20-year-old tradition of allowing the opposing political party to pick its own representative on the commission, one industry official said, further bolstering his influence over the agency.

Also, Thomas Curry, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, another important Wall Street regulator, has less than six months on his term. Together, the openings should give the Trump administration wide latitude to change the way Wall Street is regulated.

“It is a game-changer at the SEC. The commission is going to have a very different agenda over the next four years than it would have,” said Edward Mills, a policy analyst at investment bank FBR Capital Markets.

“In the long-term, it is going to be a big tilt towards free markets.”

White took office with high expectations. The SEC had long suffered under the popular notion that it was a slow, toothless tiger. White appeared to be someone who might change that reputation. Prior to her appointment, she had been a federal prosecutor who took on the terrorists behind the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993 and the Mafia boss John Gotti.

“You don’t want to mess with Mary Jo,” President Obama proclaimed while announcing her nomination in 2013. A tense exchange between Elizabeth Warren and SEC chair Mary Jo White.

White moved quickly to set a new tone at the agency. Soon after taking office, she announced that the SEC would begin requiring more companies to admit guilt as part of their settlements with the agency. It was a break from the SEC’s nearly 100-year history of extracting monetary penalties from companies, which typically would neither admit nor deny the charges lodged against them.- WSJ.