February 11, 2009

To critics, the Obama administration's new bank rescue plan raised more questions than it answered. But for many industry groups, the proposal was cause for celebration.The split response came after the Treasury Department outlined how regulators will try to prop up the limping financial industry. The idea is to create a public-private partnership to buy troubled assets, expand a plan to boost consumer and business lending and impose stricter accountability on the banking industry.

Industry groups heaped praise on the proposal, which Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled in a speech Tuesday."We are encouraged by the creative and wide-reaching suite of programs outlined today," Tim Ryan, chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said in a statement that endorsed each point of Geithner's plan.