Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Buried Treasure What we don't know about money in America

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Consumer Banking Data Sets

Broker-dealer disciplinary records
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self regulating organization (SRO), provides this database for searching for broker-dealers' disciplinary records and other information.
consolidated financial statements by bank holding companies
Consolidated "call" reports filed by banks on their financial health. These reports include an item that shows how much they make from "service charges" on their accounts, but does not separate out how much they earn from overdraft or other specific fees.
Dodd-Frank Meeting logs
In the spirit of transparency, the major federal financial agencies have been posting records of their meetings with outside representatives to discuss implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial law. However, each agency posts this information at different times and in varying formats. The Dodd-Frank meeting log tracker provides a way to search all of these records in one place.
Failed banks bid information
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) maintains this database of failed banks. While the agency is supposed to supply information on bids for these banks, as of December 2010 it had only provided such information on 41 percent of the banks that failed that year. What information it does provide is more limited than before.
Federal Open Market Committee
Minutes, transcripts, and other information relating to meetings of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Minutes are made available approximately three weeks after a meeting occurs; transcripts are delayed five years and are edited from the original.
Federal Reserve emergency lending programs
In December 2010, the Fed released data on emergency lending programs during the financial crisis, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial law.
Federal Reserve Foreign Exchange Swap Agreements
The Federal Reserve reports details of swaps with foreign central banks weekly. However, it does not report what foreign central banks do with the dollars the receive.
Investment adviser disciplinary records
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintains this database where consumers can search for investment advisers and their disciplinary records, as well as other information.

Reporting on Consumer Banking

Despite Fed's steps toward transparency, much remains opaque
By Nancy Watzman Jan 24, 2012 2:25 p.m.
In a bid to increase transparency, the Federal Reserve will for the first time make public the forecasts for benchmark interest rates that will inform discussions at tomorrow's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets monetary policy for the nation. But despite this action, there is still plenty of opacity in how the Fed conducts business.
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Central banks ease terms on currency swaps
By Nancy Watzman Nov 30, 2011 11:11 a.m.
Stocks surged today as the announcement settled in that six central banks are joining forces to ease terms of currency liquidity swaps. As we have reported earlier here and here, the European Central Bank has recently been increasing its borrowing under the emergency swap facility, which is similar to that set up during the 2008 financial crisis, when lending at one point peaked at $586 billion.
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MF Global pushed regulators to use client funds
By Nancy Watzman Nov 2, 2011 1:52 p.m.
Late last year MF Global—the failed investment firm headed by Democratic heavyweight Jon S. Corzine that can't account for as much as $900 million of its clients' money--urged a federal agency to allow futures firms to invest funds from their customer segregated accounts in foreign sovereign debt.
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Federal Reserve delays release of transcripts of major meetings
By Nancy Watzman Oct 28, 2011 10:58 a.m.
If you want to know who says what at next week's meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which oversees market operations for the central bank, you will have to wait until the year 2016 to find out.
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Bank executives plead case to administration officials over Volcker rule
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 24, 2011 12:32 p.m.
Top executives with major banks met regularly with federal agency officials who were writing a draft rule meant to curtail risky Wall Street trading — known popularly as the Volcker rule, named for the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker — federal agency meeting records show.
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GAO says Federal Reserve should improve transparency
By Nancy Watzman Oct 19, 2011 11:57 a.m.
In the wake of the financial crisis, when members of Congress and others raised questions about conflicts of interest within the Federal Reserve banking system and individual banks, the Federal Reserve should take concrete steps to become more transparent, reports the General Accountability Office (GAO) in a report issued today.
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With Fed foreign currency swaps on the rise, mystery remains which foreign banks benefit
By Nancy Watzman Oct 19, 2011 10:52 a.m.
Since the end of August, the European Central Bank has been drawing on the foreign currency swap line established by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, recently securing $1.8 billion to lend to European banks, most of it over a three-month time period. But the ECB does not name which banks or institutions are receiving these dollars. Who gets the money is anybody's guess.
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Federal Reserve forced to report which banks benefit from loan programs
By Nancy Watzman Oct 18, 2011 12:35 p.m.
It took an act of Congress and a major lawsuit, but the details of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board's emergency loan programs and discount window lending--which peaked at more than a trillion dollars for the nation's biggest banks and other institutions during the recent financial meltdown--finally came into the light.
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Bank fees are up, but disclosure is sorely lacking
By Nancy Watzman Sep 28, 2011 9:29 a.m.
As banks continue to raise their fees for consumer accounts, and free checking appears to be going the way of the dodo, banks have a decidedly spotty record on clearly disclosing these fees to their customers--even though they are required to do so by law.
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Dodd-Frank: How investment banks contributed to the financial crisis
By Nancy Watzman Jul 29, 2011 10:35 a.m.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in response to the financial crisis of 2008, added new regulations and new regulators for some—but not all—of the institutions whose actions led to the crisis. Over the next several days, we’ll be taking a look at each of the major groups of contributors to the economic crisis, who the major players were, what political influence they brought to bear on Congress and regulators, how Dodd-Frank intends to regulate them, and, using our new Dodd-Frank Meeting Logs tool, what rules these groups are trying to influence as agencies implement the legislation.
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Goldman Sachs, financial firms flood agencies to influence financial law, new Dodd-Frank tracker shows
By Nancy Watzman Jul 18, 2011 11:32 a.m.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs, one of the major players in the crisis that led to the economic meltdown of 2008, has had more meetings with government officials about the implementation of the law intended to reform the financial system than any other company or organization, an analysis of nearly a year’s worth of financial agency meeting logs shows.
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Dodd-Frank: Will the bill overturn decades of industry influence?
By Bill Allison Jul 18, 2011 11:31 a.m.
The financial crisis had several authors--federal policies that opened the door to predatory mortgage lending, unregulated financial products, integrated firms that borrowed heavily from one another to invest in the "sure bet" of mortgage-backed securities, and hedge funds and insurers that sought to profit by mitigating risk through complex financial instruments. In the aftermath of the crisis, Congress passed and President Obama signed on July 21, 2010, the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to set new safeguards for the public, to rein in financial firms, to ensure oversight of new types of financial instruments, and to give regulators more tools to prevent another crisis.
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Agencies slow to provide new data required by Dodd-Frank
By Lindsay Young Jul 18, 2011 11:30 a.m.
One year after passing Dodd Frank Financial reform, much of the work of reforming America’s financial system still lies ahead. This is not too surprising considering the sheer size of the legislation. The law created 243 rules and requires agencies to produce 67 studies, according to Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. One-hundred-twenty-two deadlines are due between July 16 and July 21.
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Poised to make decision on regulating foreign swaps, Geithner meets with banks wanting exemption
By Nancy Watzman Apr 7, 2011 10:02 a.m.
In February, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the CEO and two top-level executives from the London-based bank HSBC to discuss the issue of foreign exchange swaps.
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Data lacking on overdraft fees
By Nancy Watzman Mar 14, 2011 1 p.m.
More than six months after new federal rules went into effect that prohibit banks from charging consumers overdraft fees unless they “opt in” to such an arrangement, government data are lacking on how this has changed banks’ bottom lines.
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Top financial regulators meets with industry leaders, lobbyists
By Nancy Watzman Feb 18, 2011 9:57 a.m.
Elizabeth Warren, who has been charged with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reported more meetings with individuals outside the government in December than any other Treasury official working on implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial law.
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Information scarce on bids for failed banks
By Nancy Watzman Dec 22, 2010 3:53 p.m.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is making less information available to the public about how it is dealing with the rising number of bank failures in 2010. Over the last year, the agency has failed to post a complete list of bids on 41 percent of the deals it makes with other banks to take over failing institutions--and what information it does provide is more limited than before.
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