Ignoring President Barack Obama's plan, the Senate Banking Committee Chairman wants to propose legislation that would merge four bank agencies into one 'super-regulator.'

In an interview with the New York Times, Christopher Dodd said that he wanted to restore consumers' confidence in the nation's banking system, while not hampering business.

"We clearly need to put in place an architecture that restores confidence and makes people feel that when they engage in financial activities, from making a bank deposit to buying insurance or investing in stock, that they can have confidence in the system," the paper quoted Dodd as saying.

"On the other side of this, I don't want to strangle business," the Democratic senator added.

The Obama administration had considered, and then rejected, the idea of combining the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Comptroller of the Currency into one 'super-agency,' the newspaper said.

The administration wants to put the Fed in charge of overseeing large, interconnected firms and systemic risk in the economy. Bank oversight would be streamlined under the Obama plan with a new national bank supervisor, merging the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

AGB/ZAP/DT