President Obama has nominated Richard Berner to become the first director of the Treasury Department's new Office of Financial Research.
The office, created by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, is responsible for collecting and analyzing standardized data on financial markets, with the goal of better detecting systemic threats.
It can collect certain data that financial firms have previously kept secret, and it can share that data with other agencies.
Berner, a former chief economist at Morgan Stanley, has a head start on the job, since he was hired in April to begin setting up the office. The president nominated him to a six-year term that is subject to Senate confirmation.
The White House's failure to nominate someone to the post sooner had left some observers scratching their heads.
