FACTBOX: Major U.S. financial regulators face shake-up

(Reuters) - The Obama administration and lawmakers from both parties in Congress want to shake up the federal agencies that regulate the U.S. financial system.

But proposals for restructuring face resistance from financial interests and established bureaucracies, despite the failure of existing regulators to prevent the current financial crisis.

Here are the major regulators involved, their duties and changes they may face:

* TREASURY DEPARTMENT

Treasury is a cabinet-level department tasked primarily with financing the government and collecting taxes. It plays a major role in bond markets. It regulates banks mainly through two units: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).

Some lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, favor merging OTS and OCC to create a single banking regulator that could also take over bank supervision duties now carried out by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The administration has been cautious about a merger. Advocates say it would help prevent financial institutions from shopping around to find the most lax regulator. For instance, American International Group, although mainly an insurer, was regulated by OTS before being bailed out by taxpayers for $180 billion.

Apart from OCC and OTS, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is President Barack Obama's point man on financial regulation reform, coordinating administration strategy and handling major announcements on policy initiatives.

Treasury also manages the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which has been used to bail out AIG, automakers General Motors and Chrysler LLC, as well as major banks including Citigroup and Bank of America.