U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for major changes in compensation practices at financial companies and said the Obama administration’s plan to help realign pay with performance will be rolled out by mid-June.

“I don’t think we can go back to the way it was,” Geithner said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” to be aired tonight and over the weekend. “We’re going to need to see very, very substantial change.”

He said that Wall Street’s pay practices, which include big year-end bonuses, encouraged excessive risk-taking and helped precipitate the financial crisis. What’s needed is a set of broad standards that financial supervisors can use to make sure that doesn’t happen again, he said.

The administration’s pay plan would be part of a proposed comprehensive overhaul of financial regulation aimed at both protecting consumers and reducing vulnerability to crises. Geithner has previously ruled out setting specific caps on pay and declined to alter existing compensation contracts.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Treasury chief declined to say whether the administration would propose stripping the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of some of its powers as part of the plan and dismissed suggestions of a rift with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair.

Geithner shied away from declaring the financial crisis over, saying that credit is still tight and interest rates are still high for many business borrowers. He forecast that would improve gradually as companies and consumers reduced their debts to more financially manageable levels.