One potential ramification of the Republican Senate majority that resulted from Tuesday's elections is that regional banks will be able to continue their hefty dividend payments, says MarketWatch columnist Philip van Doorn.

While the Fed has limited banks with assets between $50 billion and $100 billion to paying dividends of less than 40 percent of their earnings, banks with assets between $10 billion and $50 billion have doled out dividends as high as 87 percent of profits this year, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Now Congress and President Obama might agree on legislation that would confine the most restrictive limits on bank dividends to those with assets of more than $50 billion, van Doorn says.

Frank Mayer, a lawyer specializing in financial services at Pepper Hamilton, believes a bill raising the threshold to $100 billion "will be signed into law, assuming the Senate and the House come to an agreement," van Doorn writes.

The KBW Regional Banking (stock) Index has returned 47 percent over the last year.

As for big banks, The Motley Fool's Matthew Frankel recommends the shares of Wells Fargo, Citigroup and TD Bank, one of Canada's largest.

And why does he like Wells Fargo?

"Even though it's the biggest U.S. bank by market cap, Wells Fargo is still growing many areas of its business," Frankel writes. "As of the most recent quarterly report, Wells showed double-digit growth in credit cards and auto lending, an area in which it recently surpassed Ally for the No. 1 market share."

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