Firm details opportunities resulting from Dodd/Frank Act Section 342

Aug. 28, 2010 - PRLog -- Section 342 of the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act contains a significant “provision creating an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion at various agencies to monitor the diversity efforts of the agencies, the regulated entities and agency contractors.” For a blog posting that reviews the Section in light of recent opinion, see: http://twisri.blogspot.com/2010/07/sec-342-office-of-minority-and-women.html

The Section requires the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, each of the Federal Reserve Banks, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to create “an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion ('OMWI') to be responsible for all agency matters relating to diversity in management, employment and business activities.”

As one analyst noted, “In addition to developing standards for and monitoring the employment diversity of the respective agency, the OMWI will have authority over the entities regulated by the agency and contractors providing services to the agencies.”

Service providers covered by the Section include “financial institutions, investment banking firms, mortgage banking firms, asset management firms, brokers, dealers, financial services entities, underwriters, accountants, investment consultants, and providers of legal services.”

Our summary describes Section 342 in general. In our full report (available upon request), we examine, in detail, profit potential and business development implications of the section. We calculate that the total dollar potential of the Section stands at $136 million.

We reviewed each covered agency, assigning a value to every opportunity. According to our calculations, law firms stand to see the biggest gain in potential business opportunities, followed by investment consultants, accountants, asset management firms, financial institutions, broker/dealers and mortgage banking firms.

For more information, see http://www.creativeinvest.com/pubs.html

# # #

Creative Investment Research is an investment research and management company. We research and create socially responsible investments and provide investment advisory services. The company was founded in 1989.