From The Raw Story

President Barack Obama will announce Wednesday the White House’s proposal for reforming the U.S. financial system. The plan will call for the closure of the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the creation of a new consumer credit protection agency and greater powers for the Federal Reserve to supervise major financial firms.

Reuters characterized the plan as cutting the number of U.S. bank regulators.

The administration would merge the OTS with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an administration official said Tuesday. The proposal also calls for creating the Consumer Federal Protection Agency (CFPA) to police credit, savings and other payment markets, the official added.

It will be guided by five principles, the official said on condition of anonymity, including “transparency, simplicity, fairness, accountability, and access.”

The agency is one of a number of reforms which Obama is expected to lay out in his latest attempt to shield consumers from the ravages of an out-of-control finance industry blamed for pitching the US and global economy into crisis.

“We are going to put forward a very strong set of regulatory measures that we think can prevent this type of crisis from happening again,” Obama said, after meeting South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak at the White House.

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