"The stakes are indeed high," Bush said Friday. "Billions of hardworking people are counting on us to strengthen the financial system for the long term."
Behind the urgent rhetoric, the steps taking shape were modest.
The action plan would include measures aimed at making the global financial system more accountable to investors and more transparent to regulators, diplomatic officials said.
It also would improve international monitoring of markets and bolster rules governing how companies value their assets, a current weakness seen as partly responsible for the financial crisis at hand. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because leaders had yet to agree on their final communique.
While the emerging plan would boost oversight of fragile financial markets, it fell short of the sweeping set of tough new regulations some Europeans want.
The summit, meant to be the first in a series, has a two-pronged agenda: reviving the ailing global economy, which has pushed up unemployment and shrunk people's savings, and exploring options for overhauling the global financial system to prevent similar financial crises in the future.
A follow-up summit is envisioned for the spring, after Barack Obama becomes president.
A new "college of supervisors," made up of financial regulators from many nations, was among the ideas likely to be included in the leaders' final communique issued expected at the summit's conclusion late Saturday.
Heads of major industrialized powers, including Britain, Germany, France and Japan, are attending the summit as are developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.
As leaders descended on Washington Friday, Bush warned for a second day of the dangers
- in his view - of too much government intervention. Strict new regulation of financial firms or products, such as some European leaders have advocated, would crush the global economy instead of protect it, he said.
While striking a similar note of caution, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also underscored the need for leaders to forge agreements to safeguard against future problems. "Instead of just muddling through dealing with the crisis, we have to show how we are making the adjustments in the proper way to this global age," Brown said.
Brown has been among the leaders pushing for a global coordination of country-by-country stimulus spending packages to combat the economic hard times that are straining millions of families and businesses.
