US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said yesterday the Obama administration was making progress in calming financial markets and would have a program to cleanse toxic assets from banks’ balance sheets running by July.

He told the Senate Banking Committee the financial system was “starting to heal,” but he said the fed had to be cautious about how it uses the dwindling money left in the $700 billion financial rescue fund.

Geithner estimated there was $123.7 billion left, adding that reflected a conservative forecast that banks would repay just $25 billion.