Among special-interest groups, banks are particularly influential. But in the aftermath of the Great Recession, they have had to accept major policy defeats. Policymakers in Europe and in the United States have considerably tightened financial regulation. The degree to which banks had to submit to new, stringent rules has varied, however, across policy arenas. This panel investigates these policy battles and the various channels that bank use to shape public policy. These inlcude forms of instrumental power through privileged access or lobbying and forms of structural power through banks’ position in the economy or through policymakers’ perceptions and public opinion. The panel advances the discussion on business power by identifying specific micro channels that allow banks and other businesses to influence policymakers and alter policy in their favor. Elsa Massoc shows how the enforcement of capital-ratio requirements depends on banks’ access to policy makers and their position in the economy. Stefano Pagliari and Kevin Young study how links between elites in financial and non-financial firms broaden lobbying coalitions for shaping financial regulatory reforms. Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee investigate how public anger towards finance can be mobilized by policy entrepreneurs to push through regulatory reforms, and Raphael Reinke analyzes the factors that prompt policymakers on the local level to privilege business over other interest groups.