The opportunity for reform of the US financial system is probably greater now than at any time since the Great Depression. 

But a year after the economic meltdown, temperatures are rising in the United States over President Barack Obama's proposals to reform Wall Street.

Central to his effort to revamp the US financial system is his call for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to prevent the lending practises that cost millions of Americans their homes, brought banks to their knees, and set the stage for the 'Great Recession'.

The banks and the financial services industry are pulling out all the stops to defeat the establishment of a new agency to protect consumers.

But with as many as 3.5 million new home foreclosures expected in 2010, citizens are taking to the streets and public pressure to regulate powerful financial institutions is growing.

People & Power's Bob Abeshouse investigates the potential for reform, and what the banks have done in the past year in return for the billions they received to bail them out.

This episode of People & Power aired from Wednesday, December 16, 2009.