Office of Financial Research 2012 Annual Report to Congress

The Office of Financial Research (OFR) issued a report assessing the state of the U.S. financial system, including an analysis of any threats to the financial stability of the United States, the status of the efforts by the OFR to meet its mission, and key findings of the OFR's research and analysis of the financial system.

The report describes how the OFR is working to satisfy its statutory mandates and mission in four complementary areas: (1) analyzing threats to financial stability, (2) conducting research, (3) addressing data gaps, and (4) promoting data standards. [SL Comment: This will be primarily a document to be studied by risk managers. It may also be useful to read the report in connection with the recently published annual report of FSOC. (see the news of July 19). The unfortunate aspect of this, as I previously commented, is that while various parts of the government may be involved in some good thinking about data collection, other parts of the government are rushing full speed ahead into data reporting requirements. The result of this is that financial institutions will be required to produce, at great expense, huge amounts of worthless data, and eventually the hastily adopted rules will have to be changed, also at great expense, so that useful data can be produced.]

View report in full here (links externally to US Treasury website).