'Too Big to Fail' Banks May Try to Get Smaller

From CNNMoney.com:

Wall Street appears to have beaten Washington to the punch.

While lawmakers enter the home stretch on regulatory reform with Thursday's Senate vote, the financial industry has already started to shake up how it does business ahead of the proposed new rules.

Just last week, Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) said it planned to shutter its more than 600 Wells Fargo Financial stores across the country and announced it was no longer going to make mortgage loans to people without stellar credit.

And on Tuesday, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said it had struck an agreement to transfer the management of part of its private equity business to outside parties StepStone Group and Lexington Partners.

Neither Wells nor Citigroup acknowledged that the moves were prompted by the proposed legislation which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama as early as next week.