To provide direct support to the FSOC, Congress created the Office of Financial Research (OFR) and instilled in it vital responsibilities for systemic data collection and analysis. The OFR was specifically given responsibility for, among other things, collecting information from agencies represented by the FSOC members, other federal and state regulatory agencies, the Federal Insurance Office and potentially from bank holding companies and nonbank financial companies, all in order to help assess risks to the US financial system. Moreover, in collecting and analyzing such matters, it was to be a primary link in coordinating systemic risk mitigation efforts globally. To date, the work of the OFR has been limited. A fully functional OFR can substantially improve the information sharing and data analysis capabilities of the FSOC and its member agencies.
The SRC has specifically called on FSOC to activate a fully functioning OFR data collection and analytics system, including the integration of data collected by individual FSOC agencies.