“Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned chief executive officers of top U.S. banks in a private meeting last month that the final Volcker rule ban on proprietary trading would be tougher than Wall Street expects.

“At the meeting, details of which haven’t previously been disclosed, Lew told industry leaders that he has been encouraging regulators to make provisions of the Volcker rule more stringent, according to two people familiar with the meeting. The bank executives, members of the Financial Services Forum, left the meeting concerned the final rule would be more restrictive on their trading business than previously indicated, the people said.

“This week regulators are putting the final touches on the rule, which could be released as soon as Dec. 10, according to two other people familiar with the process. That time frame would put regulators on track to meet the administration’s self-imposed deadline to complete the rule by the end of the year.

“’I think that there’s still work to do before this is completed. But I am very heartened by the progress that I’m seeing and that we’ll get something this year,’ Mary Miller, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for domestic finance, said yesterday at a Bloomberg Link State & Municipal Finance Conference in New York.”

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