Careers
Financial Markets and Community Investment
Our Work
Recent Accomplishments
Ongoing Projects
Key Contacts
Our Work
The Financial Markets and Community Investment team supports Congress in two areas critical to the nation’s economic and social well-being. First, we help ensure that U.S. financial markets function smoothly and effectively, and we and work to identify ways to stem fraud and abuse that can endanger the financial security of businesses, households, and individuals. Second, we help promote sound, sustainable community investment by assessing the effectiveness of federal initiatives aimed at small businesses, state and local governments, and communities. A key theme of our work is balancing safety and soundness with the need to make capital available to individuals, businesses, and communities.
We help Congress improve the effectiveness of regulatory oversight in financial and housing markets and the management of community development programs, and we examine the effectiveness of specific programs and administrative functions. To do so, we evaluate programs at the following agencies:
- Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Federal Reserve.
- Small Business Administration (SBA).
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Recent Accomplishments
- Providing information to Congress that led to the recapture of $3.49 billion in unexpended balances from HUD.
- Identifying ways to detect, mitigate, and eliminate the ability of terrorist groups and others to launder money through the U.S. financial system.
- Identifying actions that financial regulators can take to help financial markets protect themselves from terrorist attacks and develop the necessary capabilities to recover from catastrophic events.
- Proposing a framework for strengthening government-sponsored enterprises by improving their corporate governance, oversight, risk management, safety and soundness, and mission oversight.
- Improving the oversight and safety and soundness of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, Farmer Mac, and the National Credit Union System.
- Helping Congress assess consumers’ understanding of credit reporting and scoring to better target financial literacy initiatives.
- Identifying ways to protect military personnel from harmful financial products.
Ongoing Projects
- Identifying measures to assess the effectiveness of federal economic development assistance to empowerment zones and enterprise communities.
- Evaluating the adequacy of HUD’s fair housing enforcement efforts.
- Analyzing the cost implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s requirements for small public companies.
- Determining which small business markets SBA loan programs serve and their economic effects.
- Evaluating how hedge funds and the firms that engage in transactions with them manage their risk exposures.
- Evaluating the rental assistance and supportive services and veterans’ preferences HUD, public housing agencies, and property owners establish for low-income veterans.
Key Contacts
Managing Director: Richard J. Hillman
Directors: Jack E. Edwards (acting), Yvonne D. Jones, Mathew J. Scire, William B. Shear, Orice M. Williams
Phone: (202) 512-8678
Mailing Address:
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Financial Markets and Community Investment
Room 2440B
441 G Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20548