U.S. congressional leaders have agreed on a deal that will toughen financial regulations in a way not seen since the Great Depression.

The details are many. Among them, this legislation will create a new federal agency to police consumer lending. It will set up a warning system for financial risks, it will force failing firms to liquidate their assets, and it imposes new rules for some financial instruments that have been unregulated.

Such everyday transactions as swiping a debit card will be changed. The Federal Reserve will set up new rates that banks can charge merchants for such transactions. The theory is that the merchants, who could save billions, will pass that on to consumers in lower prices. Or, if you view the world through a cynic’s eye, the merchants will perhaps leave prices the same and pocket the lower charges as increased profits.

A telling result of this deal is what happened on Wall Street to the stocks of big financial firms. Bank of America rose 2 percent. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased by 3 percent. So did JP Morgan Chase and Co. Why did these stocks rise on the day the deal was worked out? It wasn’t as tough as they thought it might be.

The banks accepted the proposal on debit cards with a shrug and started looking for other ways to make money by getting around these rules and establishing new fees. That tiny print in your checking account statement or credit card agreement becomes more important than ever now.

Some of the provisions of this legislation just make sense. For instance, lenders now must verify that borrowers can repay the loans. You would have thought that banks and financial institutions with billions of dollars on deposit and at risk would be able to figure this out for themselves. But no, it now literally takes an act of Congress for a lender to be told to check out the borrower before handing over the money.

President Obama and the Democrats will call this deal a victory and hope it helps them in the fall elections. Republicans will say the bill is flawed and doesn’t address the most critical financial needs of the country.

Perhaps both are right, and perhaps both share responsibility for the final version of the legislation.

The lobbyists serving various financial interests had some success. Auto dealers, who make the vast majority of loans to people buying cars, escaped being placed under the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Stockbrokers aren’t more accountable for the advice they give their clients, but the Securities and Exchange Commission will perform a study on the issue.

“Other complex banking regulations were either toned down or grandfathered in for banks of a certain size.

So, much like the health care reform bill, we get a little of this, a little of that, some folks have to change their way of doing business, some aren’t affected and both parties claim victory.

We will see how it plays out as the new rules and regulations go into effect.