The shift of the U.S. House of Representatives to Republican control is expected to give the GOP and Wall Street a fresh opportunity to reshape pending financial regulations.

Republicans will have oversight of the agencies whose task is to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, The New York Times reports. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will be working on more than 240 rules that govern items such as bank capital standards.

The House takeover and the GOP's strengthened position in the Senate will also give the party greater influence over the direction and independence of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Republicans say they will use the House Financial Services Committee to ensure that regulators such as the CFTC and the consumer protection bureau do not write rules for the banking industry that lawmakers consider overly restrictive, Bloomberg News reports.

Slower rule making or additional pressure on regulators could benefit companies such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., which lobbied against parts of the Dodd-Frank law and predicted it would hurt their financial results.

Democrats still control the Senate, and Republicans are unlikely to be able to fundamentally reshape or repeal the Dodd-Frank law or unwind the government's role in housing finance. But the Republican approach will mark a shift from Democratic policies.

Click here for the Bloomberg report.

Click here for The New York Times report.