Via AmericanBanker.com, John Heltman (free to non-subscribers): “The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — one of the five regulatory agencies that had to write and implement the Volcker Rule — estimated the cost of compliance at just under $1 billion when it conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the proposal back in 2011. A more recent estimate by Bernstein Research put that cost at closer to $8 billion to $10 billion annually. More precise estimates of compliance costs are elusive. Banking industry trade groups don’t keep track of compliance costs for their members and the bigger consulting firms with Volcker compliance practices declined to give specifics when asked for figures of how lucrative those practices are. Tim Keehan, vice president and senior counsel at the American Bankers Association, said there are no firm figures on exact costs associated with the Volcker Rule, but said the OCC’s estimate was likely merely “a starting point” and that compliance costs alone would be “billions.” Even if exact compliance costs are hard to pin down, for a rule that was not envisioned as a core element of financial reform, the Volcker Rule plays an outsized role. Thomas Vartanian, a partner at Dechert LLP and former OCC official, said that the Volcker Rule is one of the biggest compliance burdens in Dodd-Frank, in a league with derivatives regulation or the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”