DFIN Financial Transparency Act Blog

DFIN Supports Reintroduction of the Financial Transparency Act (FTA) to Help Bring Financial Transparency to Financial Markets and Foster Economic Growth and Capital Formation for Industry

I’ve been in the financial industry a long time. Some may disagree, but I believe in transparency. I believe it enables businesses, organizations—and governments—to work better, together. As an industry leader within the financial industry, as a global risk and compliance organization, it goes without saying that we, Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN), are a proud supporter of the reintroduced Financial Transparency Act (FTA) H.R. 2989, under Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

The FTA would establish standards and common elements for government data already collected by the eight financial regulatory member agencies of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). The required standards will ensure that information collected through existing reporting processes will utilize fully searchable and machine-readable non-proprietary data formats to help facilitate more reliable and regulatory compliance.

In fact, DFIN has been a longtime supporter of this bill, as it will enact into law much-needed new data reporting standards—helping to enhance accuracy, increase efficiency, enable greater automation and facilitate data analysis.

I believe implementation of data consistency across all major US financial regulatory agencies is necessary. The FTA will help to streamline the cost of compliance for regulated firms and improve the ability of financial regulators to enforce regulatory requirements. Further, it will ultimately help to drive the evolution of regulatory technology and the application of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and advanced analytics that we can support using iXBRL / XBRL.

While elements of this bill are already being adopted by various agencies of government like the SEC, CFTC and FDIC, I truly believe a coordinated government-wide approach in the US, as outlined by the FTA, will help to bring an unparalleled degree of transparency to our financial markets, and assist investors in making better investment decisions.