The plan would stiffen penalties for financial fraud and require financial executives to personally foot the bill for settlements and fines levied against their companies. Clinton would also curtail the use of so-called "deferred prosecution agreements," in which the Department of Justice agrees to call off its investigation if a company makes important operational changes -- effectively letting wrongdoers off the hook. No major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for financial crime under President Barack Obama and his two attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

But the bulk of Clinton's plan focuses on closing holes that bank lobbyists have drilled into the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform package in the years since its original conception. The bill originally banned federal subsidies for risky derivatives trading, but Congress reinstated the Wall Street perks late last year as part of a government funding bill. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) attempted to bring down the funding bill over the subsidies, Obama and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon personally lobbied lawmakers to approve the provision. The plan Clinton announced Thursday would repeal the perks, returning to the original intent of Dodd-Frank.

Clinton would also beef up Dodd-Frank's Volcker Rule, which bans banks that accept federal perks from conducting securities trades for their own accounts. Such speculative bets can be wildly profitable for banks in the short term, while generating tremendous long-term risks that taxpayers can be forced to pay for in a crisis. Dodd-Frank includes a loophole allowing big bank conglomerates to devote a significant amount of money to ownership stakes in hedge funds and private equity projects. Clinton would close that loophole.
The plan also includes a tax on high-frequency trading, a risky practice in which computers process thousands of trades by the microsecond to cash in on small price movements in stocks and other securities. High-frequency trading was widely blamed for the so-called "Flash Crash" of 2010, when stocks mysteriously plummeted, only to recover within a few hours.

Clinton would also remove key regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission from the congressional appropriations process -- a move that would prevent Republicans from holding agency funding hostage to their demands for deregulation.

The Clinton plan's most direct nod to Warren, who largely sets the financial reform agenda for the Democratic Party's base, is an endorsement of the senator's Truth In Settlements Act. Warren's bill would require far more detailed public disclosures about the total effect of corporate settlements on company bottom lines. While government regulators often crow about seemingly huge payouts from banks, accounting details and tax breaks often sharply limit the actual impact on big firms. The Truth in Settlements Act would require a full public accounting of the effects of each settlement. The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), but has received little support from the GOP majority.