“Wall Street bonuses are about to get locked up for even longer. As part of a hard-fought update of crisis-era compensation rules expected in April, regulators plan to require banks to hold back much of an executive’s bonus beyond the three years already adopted by many firms, people familiar with the matter said.

“The new holding period has yet to be determined, though it likely will be shorter than the European standard of a decade, one person familiar with the matter said. Also unclear is the portion that will be deferred. The original draft of the rules five years ago said it should be as much as 50%.”

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“The law requires the regulators to address this obvious systemic risk,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, an organization focused on financial overhaul. “There is really no defensible reason that five years later it has not been done.”

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Read the full Wall Street Journal article by Donna Barak here.