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WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — The Senate on Thursday afternoon passed the most sweeping set of changes to the financial regulatory system since the 1930s, sending the Wall Street reform bill to President Obama.

The Senate voted 60 to 39 to pass the reforms, ending more than a year-long effort to pass legislation in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.

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WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Lawmakers are closing in on melding two different versions of Wall Street reform.

Late Thursday evening, lawmakers had just started to tackle one of the last and more controversial issues: Cracking down on the big banks’ investment activities and risky bets.

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WASHINGTON – In a setback for the Obama administration, Senate Democrats failed to muster enough votes on Wednesday to end debate on the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s, delaying a vote on passage.

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Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times.

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WASHINGTON – The financial system has stabilized but needs new regulations to curtail behavior and practices that led to the meltdown that brought Wall Street to the brink of collapse, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night in a prime-time press conference at the White House.

The president specifically mentioned regulatory changes that would require shareholders to have nonbinding votes on executive compensation packages. He said the government could impose new fees on institutions that engage in what he called “far-out transactions.”

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WASHINGTON – Sen. Daniel K. Inouye’s staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm’s losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn’t meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.

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WASHINGTON – Top executives of the nation’s biggest banks said Friday after meeting with President Barack Obama that they will work with the administration on its economic recovery plans, but want more specifics from the White House.

Bankers said an administration proposal to jump-start lending, a problem at the heart of the industry’s crisis, is encouraging.

“People are looking at that. It’s positive,” Morgan Stanley’s John Mack told The Associated Press in an interview. “

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WASHINGTON – Jarred by a cool reception from the White House and fears of unintended consequences across the financial world, Senate leaders are likely to delay until late next month legislation to punitively tax bonuses at banks and investment firms that receive federal aid.

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WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said.

The outlines of the plan are expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for President Obama’s first foreign summit meeting in early April.

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Echoing the sentiment of taxpayers, the president on Monday called the ailing insurance giant’s plans to dole out $165 million in bonuses an “outrage” and said he would attempt to block the additional compensation.

AIG, one of the big benefactors of the government bailout, is now nearly 80 percent owned by taxpayers.