U.S. Summons Banks to Meeting on Rescue Plan

He said five veteran government officials had been chosen as interim heads of key components of the program including Tom Bloom, currently the chief financial officer at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to serve as the chief financial officer for the rescue program.

Kashkari said seven policy teams at Treasury had been created to focus on the different aspects of the program including buying bad assets such as mortgage-backed securities.

Kashkari announced that investment consultancy Ennis Knupp & Associates had been chosen as the private firm that will help Treasury review proposals from asset management companies. He said that 70 companies had made bids to become the master custodian firm and that a final selection of the winning firm would be announced by Tuesday.

He said more than 100 companies had submitted bids to become one of the five to 10 firms that will operate the program to buy and manage the bad assets from financial firms.

Kashkari's speech Monday marked his first public appearance since being selected a week ago to run the program.

Paulson said during weekend meetings with global financial powers that his department was working around the clock to carry out the plan. His comments were meant to convince investors that the world's largest economy is moving quickly to get lending restarted and avert what could be a deep and painful global recession.

Those dire concerns sent markets around the world reeling last week, giving the Dow Jones industrial average it worst week on record. Since peaking a year ago, the Dow is now down 40.3 percent. U.S. stocks have lost $8.4 trillion in value over the past year.

Throughout the weekend, the administration worked to restore confidence, using the annual meetings of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank to send a message that global finance officials will do what it takes to resolve the crisis.

The Group of Seven major industrial countries issued a five-point action plan that pledged to do everything from preventing major banks from failing to unfreezing credit markets.