Obama pushes consumer financial protection agency

President Barack Obama comments on winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize while delivering a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington October 9, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama promoted his plans for a new consumer financial protection agency on Friday by saying it would prevent banks from using "ridiculously confusing contracts."

In remarks prepared for delivery, Obama also said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had made "completely false" claims in advertisements opposing the new agency.

Obama said the business lobby group was trying to "kill" the proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that the administration sees as a key part of a regulatory overhaul aimed at preventing a repeat of the current economic crisis.

Analysts have blamed banks and financial services companies for failing to adequately warn consumers of risks they were taking in the period that led of the credit-fueled crisis.

"In a financial system that has never been more complicated, it has never been more important to have a watchdog function like the one we've proposed," Obama said.

"We have already seen and lived the consequences of what happens when there is too little accountability on Wall Street and too little protection for Main Street, and I will not allow this country to go back there."

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by John O'Callaghan)