February 2012 FLEC Meeting Minutes

Financial Literacy and Education Commission Public Meeting 

February 14, 2012

10:30 am – 12:00 pm

U.S. Department of the Treasury – Cash Room 

MEETING MINUTES

Financial Literacy and Education Commission Members Present:

Federal Reserve Board of Governors Anna Alvarez-Boyd

Dept. of the Treasury Cyrus Amir-Mokri

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Karen Bellesi

Small Business Administration Nathaniel Bishop

National Credit Union Association Roger Blake

Dept. of Education Elizabeth Coogan

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Richard Cordray

Dept. of Labor Michael Davis

Social Security Administration Jim Courtney

Dept. of Housing & Urban Development William Glavin

Dept. of Health & Human Services Mark Greenberg

CFTC Michael Herndon

Office of Personnel Management Raymond Kirk

Dept. of Defense Brenda McDaniel

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Luke Reynolds

Securities & Exchange Commission Lori Schock

Dept. of Veterans Affairs Julie Schroeder 

Dept. of Agriculture Susan Shockey

Federal Trade Commission Colleen Tressler

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Barry Wides

General Services Administration James Zawada

Dept. of the Treasury Louisa Quittman

Other Participants:

Sophie Raseman, Dept. of the Treasury

Matt Fellowes, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hello Wallet

Chris Vein , White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Introduction

Louisa Quittman, Director for Financial Education for the U.S. Department of the Treasury 

called the meeting to order.

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Cyrus Amir-Mokri, Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, U.S. Department of the Treasury 

Richard Cordray, Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Cyrus Amir-Mokri, Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, U.S. Department of the 

Treasury, welcomed Commission members and the general public to the meeting of the Financial 

Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC). He began by thanking the Commission for their 

work and their successful coordination of agencies. He expressed his excitement about the work 

being done on Smart Disclosure, or using information and technology in a way that focuses on 

and improves consumers’ decision making. He mentioned that the Treasury and the Social 

Security Administration will sign a Memorandum of Understanding supporting future research. 

He also gave a summary of the last meeting of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial 

Capability, noting that a key recommendation of the Council was that the federal government 

serve as a model employer for the integration of financial capability in the workplace. Finally, 

he welcomed Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) 

and new Vice Chair of the Commission.

Cordray began by highlighting the work of the CFPB aligned with the objectives of the 

Commission. He mentioned that the ability to understand and control one’s finances is one of the 

most important life skills because it creates a path to economic independence and mobility. He 

briefly highlighted the Office of Financial Education, headed by Camille Busette, which is 

mandated by law to develop and implement initiatives intended to educate and empower 

consumers, which has already done significant work with their “Know Before you Owe” 

Campaigns.

Financial Education Approaches: Smart Disclosures

Moderator: Chris Vein, Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Government Innovation, White House

Office of Science and Technology Policy

Chris Vein introduced the panelists. 

Panel: 

Sophie Raseman, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Co-Chair, Smart Disclosure Task Force 

The first panelist was Sophie Raseman, who discussed Smart Disclosure and its connection to 

financial education. She first explained the concept of Smart Disclosure, or taking the data on 

products and services such as price and features of financial products and making it available to 

the public in machine readable formats for people to access via the internet. The financial 

education community has been a leader in promoting access to these tools. For example, the 

National Strategy for Financial Literacy from 2011 focuses on promoting broader access to tools 

that can help consumers make wiser choices, and Smart Disclosure is one of the most powerful 

ways of stimulating the creation of tools for financial consumers. This concept is already being 

done with sites like Kayak.com, which allow consumers to run flight search comparisons, or 

other mobile comparison shopping tools. However Raseman highlighted a gap in the market for 

similar financial product comparison tools, resulting from a lack of data access that innovators 

require to build these tools. She noted that the government has two important levers for 

establishing access to data: releasing data sets and making information that sellers of financial 

products disclose to the marketplace more usable. Even those products that have begun to create 

these financial products like HelloWallet or Mint.com are limited because of their lack of data 

access. Raseman reminded the Commission that the Task Force on Smart Disclosure exists in 
part to serve as a resource to agencies who are interested in exploring how Smart Disclosure can 

help them in their work.

Michael L. Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Employee Benefits Security Administration

(EBSA), U.S. Department of Labor

Mr. Davis discussed some of the work being done at the Department of Labor on Smart 

Disclosure, and the impact that they have found it has on real Americans. Mr. Davis began by 

discussing the role of EBSA. Its mission is to protect the benefits of working Americans, retired 

Americans and those enrolled in private sector plans including retirement and health plans. There 

are about 140 million Americans affected by these plans, so EBSA’s role is regulation and 

enforcement around the operation of these plans. There are regulations regarding how these plans 

must operate, which mandate acting in the interest of the people enrolled. This law is the 1974 

Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Mr. Davis mentioned that EBSA is very 

active in this area of indictment for non-compliance and in other areas. One function that not 

many are aware of is that participants of different plans can actually call a number (866-444-

EBSA), and get a live person on the phone to discuss their benefits. Mr. Davis cited some of the 

impactful work currently being done, particularly with victims of domestic violence. After 

learning that many victims stay in abusive situations for financial reasons, EBSA began hosting 

webcasts on retirement and benefits for those working with victims, and formed plans for 

another webcast targeted towards the victims themselves.

With regard to Smart Disclosure, Mr. Davis pointed to the Form 5500, a key tool for consumers, 

which outlines benefits plans of companies. This form is available for free online. There are 

raw data sets available as well, which have been viewed 47,000 times over the past couple of 

years. The private sector is using this data as well. For example, Brightscope has a system which 

groups plans by peer groups, size of the plan and assets, industry, number of participants, etc., 

and rank the plans in terms of fees and other components. Another company is FreeERISA, 

which makes information more available to people in the industry 

Matt Fellowes, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hello Wallet

Mr. Fellowes offered a private sector view of the way Smart Disclosure helps consumers 

increase their savings and overall financial wellness, and how additional Smart Disclosures 

would help that objective even further. Mr. Fellowes reported that about 70 percent of workers 

reported living paycheck to paycheck, which results in an inability to effectively allocate their 

paychecks. Retirement needs are ultimately going unmet along with emergency funds and other 

savings goals in favor of bills, spending, debt and health. The number one reason people report 

that they are not contributing enough to their 401(k) is because they are concerned they don’t 

have enough money to do so. With more immediate concerns hanging overhead, Mr. Fellowes 

stated that workers living paycheck to paycheck are not focusing on understanding financial 

products and services. This situation makes workers vulnerable to abuses. HelloWallet uses 

Smart Disclosure to help consumers find better prices in the marketplace and they use 

personalized messages and guidance based off of the data that they observe on individual 

households. After an individual agrees to disclose their financial data, HelloWallet is able to 

assess warning signs. For example, if an individual has not purchased a car in years, they are 
vulnerable to the financial pitfalls of maintenance for their old car, without ever beginning to 

save for a new one. HelloWallet will therefore send reminder messages encouraging saving or 

routine checkups to avoid more costly emergency maintenance.

Mr. Fellowes pointed out that as successful as these tools are, they could be even more effective 

if more data were available. For example IRS data would provide a much richer picture of a 

person’s finances. Item-level data on food consumption would also assist companies with 

improving the health of their employees, something more employers are becoming increasingly 

interested in. Mr. Fellowes expressed that there is an enormous amount of power in Smart 

Disclosure. HelloWallet has increased savings contributions by 80 percent within three months. 

He also acknowledged the risks, namely privacy, or false advertising of products which offer 

inflated returns. 

Discussion/Q & A from the Commission

Mr. Vein asked the panel about the next steps and ways of prioritizing the work to be done. Mr. 

Fellowes replied that though the answer is not a simple one, the first step might be to define the 

automation of data and getting a clearer picture of the opportunities available. Mr. Davis replied 

that this is a topic that is being actively discussed, and Ms. Raseman stated that an important and 

practical next step is to talk to the data user communities and get their feedback on what they 

consider most valuable. Mr. Fellowes also clarified that part of what makes HelloWallet so userfriendly is that the consumer does not have to manually input their data, they simply log on to 

their bank through the application and the data populates automatically. He noted that a big 

barrier here was that consumers have to trust an online company with their user name and 

password. They overcame this barrier by distributing through employers, maintaining 

independence without advertisements, and touting a social mission with values that instill 

confidence in consumers. Mr. Vein closed the panel portion by asking about digital inclusion 

and the digital divide, and the possibility of making that divide worse. Mr. Fellowes posited that 

the key is to be very mindful of the fact that there is a diverse group of needs, and that there are 

no silver bullets. 

Financial Literacy and Education Commission Updates 

General Updates: 

Louisa Quittman, Director, Office of Financial Education, U.S. Department of the Treasury 

Ms. Quittman began by welcoming Director Cordray and members of his team: Gail Hillebrand, 

the Associate Director of Consumer Education and Engagement, and Camille Busette, Assistant 

Director for the Office of Financial Education at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She 

also welcomed Michael Herndon, of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Consumer 

Outreach Office, and Roger Blake of the National Credit Union Administration, sitting in for 

Tanya Green. She noted that the January 19th meeting of the President’s Advisory Council 

focused on workplace financial education and the roles employers can play in promoting the 

well-being of workers and sustainability of businesses. The Council recommended that the 

government serve as a model employer to promote the financial capability of more than 2 million 

federal employees. Ms. Quittman also mentioned that the MyMoney.gov website was being 
upgraded, and that the Council was working on integrating the financial research clearinghouse, 

as well as consumer finance data-sets. The upgraded website will also include a self-assessment 

tool. Finally, Ms. Quittman reminded everyone that the National Financial Capability 

Challenge kicks off in one month.

 

Core Competencies and Financial Access:

Luke Reynolds, Chief, Outreach and Program Development, Federal Deposit Insurance 

Corporation 

Mr. Reynolds reported that the Financial Access Working Group is an ongoing resource for 

agencies considering financial access projects and initiatives, as it helps agencies identify 

existing financial access programs within other agencies within federal government with the goal 

of creating better synergies between financial education and access initiatives. Regarding the 

Core Competencies Working Group, marketing concepts have been developed by marketing 

experts with information taken from focus groups, to prompt initial consideration and encourage 

more people to learn more about the core competencies. After those materials are cleared, the 

group will provide insights on communicating the core competencies. The vision is to align 

MyMoney.gov so that consumers can go to the site to access resources from the agencies aligned 

with each of the core competencies. They are currently reviewing existing resources on My 

Money.gov, identifying gaps, and developing introductory content to introduce each of the five 

core competencies.

Research and Evaluation: 

Jeanne Hogarth, Program Manager, Consumer Education and Research Section, Division of 

Consumer and Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Dr. Hogarth outlined two major projects currently in progress: an updated list of research 

priorities to build upon that which was created in the fall of 2008, slated for release in the spring; 

and the research clearinghouse mentioned by Ms. Quittman. This involves building a database 

of federal research in the area of financial literacy and capability, and federal data sets that other 

researchers can use. Dr. Hogarth also mentioned that she serves on the Program for International 

Student Assessment (PISA) Advisory Committee, which is putting together the 2012 PISA 

Financial Literacy Test. Every three years 15-year olds are surveyed internationally for 

comparisons in math, literacy or problem-solving skills. In 2012 financial literacy will also be 

assessed, and the U.S. will participate. 

National Strategy:

Karen Bellesi, Special Advisor for Community Affairs, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Ms. Bellesi reported that over the past 18 months the Commission launched both the National 

Strategy for Financial Literacy and the Implementation Plan for promoting financial success, 

both of which can be found on MyMoney.gov in the “About Us” section. The Working Group 

then revamped its mission to include two focus areas: to keep the National Strategy relevant and 

up-to-date; and to help coordinate the efforts to carry out the Implementation Plan at the federal 

level. Ms. Bellesi mentioned four planned activities. The first is an outreach plan for the 

National Strategy and the Implementation Plan to increase public awareness. The second is to 

coordinate a Commission-wide action plan to include plans of action by the Commission’s 
Working Groups to implement the four goals. The third is to recommend focus themes for use 

by the Commission’s agencies in collaborating on outreach and other activities. Finally, the 

Working Group is creating a web-based vehicle for Commission members to share information 

and ideas, as well as promote partnerships on the Commission’s activities. 

Conclusion

Ms. Quittman took time to acknowledge Cassandra McConnell of the CFPB’s Office of 

Financial Education who recently took on the role of Chair of the Outreach Working Group. She 

also thanked the Working Group Chairs for their reports, and all the members of the Working 

Groups. Susan Shockey of USDA announced a meeting scheduled for the following day on the 

topic of “Small Steps to Health and Wealth” with Dr. Barbara O’Neill from Rutgers University. 

Ms. Quittman concluded the meeting after reminding the Commission of the next meeting, 

tentatively scheduled for May 22nd. 

The meeting adjourned at 11:55 AM.