Plan for Single Bank Regulator Gets Closer

Updated from 12:23 a.m. EDT

Officials of the Obama administration are close to recommending that Congress create a single regulator to oversee the entire banking sector, a report says.

The new agency is expected to be a major part of a proposal that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House officials will send Capitol Hill in a few weeks with the goal of overhauling supervision of the financial markets, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Journal reports Obama administration officials also are considering an agency that would monitor financial products offered to consumers and a regulator for stronger investor protection.

The plans are still in the works and could change before a formal recommendation is made to Congress in mid-June, the newspaper reports.

"The president is committed to signing a regulatory reform package by the end of the year and officials at the White House and the Treasury department are continuing work with Congress on the final phases of a proposal, but there is no final proposal in place and any announcement will not be for a couple of weeks," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told the Journal.

The new bank regulatory agency would consolidate the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision and strip supervisory powers from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

But the Fed and the FDIC would gain other powers as White House officials want the Fed to be able to oversee systemic risks in the economy. Officials also want the FDIC to have new powers to take large financial companies that aren't banks into receivership, according to the Journal.