Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, and Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Senior Member of the House Financial Services Committee and previous Chair of the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, today introduced The Financial Transparency Act.
The legislation will make financial data more easily available and less opaque by requiring U.S. financial regulatory agencies to better organize data and make this data available online as open data.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has proven the critical role that technology plays in our financial system,” said Rep. McHenry. “It just makes sense for financial regulators to use technology to make public data more easily accessible—increasing transparency and decreasing regulatory burdens. Streamlining data sets benefits everyone from financial institutions to tech startups and I’m glad to join Congresswoman Maloney in reintroducing this commonsense legislation.”
“The Financial Transparency Act will finally bring financial reporting and transparency into the 21st Century – making information more easily accessible to both regulators and the public,” said Rep. Maloney. “This bill is a true win-win because it helps investors, businesses, and the government. I’ve long been an advocate for structured data in financial reporting, and I’m proud to introduce this bill with Ranking Member McHenry.”
“The Data Coalition applauds the bipartisan leadership of Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC) on the re-introduction of the Financial Transparency Act. Investors, regulators, private firms, researchers, and the entire American public need reliable access to timely, valid information to support financial decisions. The Financial Transparency Act sets the stage for modernizing the country’s antiquated regulatory reporting infrastructure and information quality for financial services, which will enable greater market transparency, firm accountability, and regulatory efficiency,” said Nick Hart, President of the Data Foundation and the Data Coalition Initiative.
Background
The Financial Transparency Act would require all eight of the country’s financial regulators to adopt a set of data collection and dispersion standards for the information they collect under current law, including the adoption of electronic forms to replace paper-based forms.
All data would be made available in an open-source format that is electronically searchable, downloadable in bulk and without license restrictions.
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