For much of the last year, aides to Mr. Obama have sought to mollify Wall Street executives still bristling over the president’s criticisms of their profits and bonuses, while defending the administration’s program of tougher oversight and regulation as both necessary and beneficial to the industry in the long term.

But with Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who once ran the private equity firm Bain Capital, the candidate many in Mr. Obama’s camp believe is his most likely Republican opponent next fall, Mr. Obama’s campaign appears to sense an opportunity to harness public resentment over an industry that has largely thrived while the rest of the economy has not.

“There’s no doubt that Governor Romney has raised money off of his belief that Wall Street should be allowed to write its own rules again by repealing Wall Street reform,” said Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman. “The president put in place protections to ensure that the financial crisis is not repeated and that unacceptable risks aren’t taken with Americans’ life savings.”

For his part, Mr. Romney is now pitching himself as the turnaround expert for an ailing national economy. He has personally wooed major Wall Street donors, successfully recruiting several senior financial executives poised to back Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey had he opted for a White House bid.

But anger at big banks — manifested by the growing Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City and elsewhere — is palpable enough that Mr. Romney must avoid being seen as a friend of an industry that many Americans blame for onerous bank fees and underwater mortgages.

“To the extent anyone is supporting Mitt Romney over President Obama,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, “it is because of the state of the economy and the president’s failures to create jobs.”

On Friday, Mr. Obama also voluntarily released an updated list of his bundlers for the campaign — a practice none of the Republican candidates has adopted.