In a poke in the eye to the financial community, President Barack Obama on Friday named Elizabeth Warren, an aggressive consumer advocate and Wall Street adversary, to oversee creation of a new agency to regulate banks, lenders and credit card companies.

Sidestepping a Senate confirmation fight -- for now -- Obama stopped short of nominating Warren to actually head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Instead, his action will let the Harvard Law School professor and expert on bankruptcy move quickly to shape the bureau.

Senate Republicans view her as too critical of Wall Street and big banks. The business and banking community opposed Warren as director of the new bureau, contending she would make the agency too aggressive.