“Many of us on the public side had to deal with industry push-back, at times amplified by public coverage,” Mr. Hildebrand said. “One lesson that emerges is that the capacity of the financial industry to lobby for its short-term interests is far reaching.”

The debate centers on an international accord that most people outside the industry have never heard of, the so-called Basel III rules. The core issue and main point of dispute is capital — the money that banks accumulate through issuing stock and holding onto profits, money that they do not have to repay. The regulators want banks to finance their operations with more capital and less borrowed money. Advocates argue that the bigger the capital buffer, the greater the stability of the financial system. But financing operations from capital, rather than borrowing money, is less profitable, and that means lower bonuses.

“In the financial crisis the banks got the upside and the public got the downside,” said Stephen G. Cecchetti, head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, in Basel, Switzerland. The bank houses the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the secretive panel that establishes global banking standards. “We want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

After some fierce battles, proponents of the tighter rules have achieved some success in pushing through measures that will force banks to reduce risk. The Federal Reserve on Tuesday published draft regulations that draw heavily on the agreements reached in Basel. But there is a long phase-in period that the banking industry could use to try to water down the rules. And many economists fear that the new regulatory regime still allows banks to take outsize risks.