Insurance & Commerce- House
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Speaker 1
0:00
that uh again there may be some questions on uh we don't think it'll be particularly controversial though but uh not many of those so you'll see us here on with that legislation and those bills you know have been worked worked up within our own insurance department staff in consultation with the secretary of commerce and approval of the governor's office so those Those are the ones that we're for or pushing and can really speak for.
Anything else that comes up, we would typically not take a position on, but always happy to consult with the members on in any way we can be of help. So that's sort of my introduction, Mr. Chairman, and just looking forward to working with everybody. Well, thank you very much for
Speaker 6
0:50
being here today. Are there any members that have just a question for the commissioner while he is before us?
Anyone? Okay. Well, thank you very much for being here today. Thank you. To make this presentation. We look forward to working with you. Commissioner Munson, if you will come forward to represent the Securities Department. Good morning.
Eric Munson
Unverified
1:25
be sure to turn your mic on sorry that's right thank you mr chairman members of the committee my name is eric munson i'm the commissioner of the arkansas security department and like alan
said i've been on the job about six months now and we've hit the ground running and very excited trying to be positive about the session starting i know it's very difficult for all of us and challenging with the covid circumstances but uh again the markets are open we've got to be open and I know the people's business is open I have with me uh Karen Turney she's our staff attorney will be handling the majority of our legislative affairs for securities and has many sessions experience uh under her her belt and has worked with this committee quite often and we want to be available to you as a resource also um I bring about I guess this is
My first session was 1991, and I got to work in Insurance Commerce for about 10 sessions. And the last two sessions, you haven't seen me. I ran another agency, and I was in public health every day. So it's good to be back in Insurance Commerce working with you on these issues. Just in a nutshell, a lot of questions I've run to. What is the Securities Department? You all are aware of that. Some people think we're like protection. We are protection, but like a security guard company. It's the Securities Department.
And we're a smaller agency. We're a pre-lean, but we feel like we have an important role in the big picture where we protect Arkansas investors. We regulate anyone and everyone that sells a stock, bond, mutual fund security in the state of Arkansas. It goes into mutual funds. We provide registration for non-banking mortgage companies, money services, money lenders, the Wells Fargo, those things. Right now we've been super busy with cryptocurrency issues. The new digital economy is arriving.
That's very new to all of a sudden. We face some new challenges also as a regulator. We oversee the state chartered savings and loan institutions. Many, many different duties. We bring in about $19 million a year in revenue to the state. there's uh we feel like we do provide a role there in the collection for those registration fees uh but but again all this goes in our goal is is to protect arkansas investors in all these ways
and a lot of this also is our investor education uh i was in another meeting i'll single out representative wooten called us we've been to the bb school district before about the stock market game some of you people might be familiar with that we provide those services and we partner with, like, Economics Arkansas and other groups. We also have staff. We give a lot of speeches, try to. I've been very proactive about that, that we educate Arkansans about the importance of investing and financial responsibility, and it all goes back to financial literacy. We have very low numbers in the state.
We're a small agency, but we're trying to do our part to address that to help educate people and be aware of the importance of being an investor and how markets impact us all. um i can go run through some other details again there's a lot of little issues that in the financial world and especially excuse me relates to securities that we affect but um we want to be here this session we might come to you with a few bills that we're trying to clean up with the securities act regarding money services and um and that that'll be uh in the in the near future
i karen would you like to add anything i'm sorry i kind of went through this but we just want to a resource and we work a lot of national groups and other states are doing things we always want to be uh up to speed on cutting edge of things so if there's any information or ideas you have we'd love to visit with you about
Speaker 13
5:17
that or help or answer questions just to clarify Karen Tierney uh staff attorney with the security department just to clarify a couple things that the commissioner said we plan on running three bills one focused on the securities act one on the fair mortgage lending act which covers
non-depository servicers and mortgage brokers that operate in arkansas as well as one act for money transmitters who transmit money we're talking about the pay pals the western unions the money grams so i mean you know that's covering everybody i don't know about you guys but i spent a lot more money digitally this year than i or last year than i you know did in person so i mean that that's only going to increase and we want to make sure we have the proper protections in place on that act as we have in you know securities and mortgage that we've focused on so much in
the past but those are the main focuses for this session and obviously we want your input we have talked with industry groups on all of these bills that we're thinking about and gotten their input as well so we have been proactive in reaching out to the industry that these directly
Speaker 18
6:21
you very much for for being with us today And I just want to thank you for, even though I did not know until Monday that I was going to be returning as chairman of this committee, I appreciated the opportunity to visit with
you about some of your upcoming legislation, as well as Commissioner McLean's staff went over the omnibus bill and some of the other legislation. So thank you very much. You are a very valuable resource. So thank you for being here this morning. Thank you. Look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Members, I will let you know that we will also be inviting the Public Service Commission, and I believe that would be Ted Thomas, to come make a presentation in one of our future meetings.
The banking department, I just did not get an opportunity to reach out to them. I see a gentleman over there in a pink tie, but I can't tell if you're, are you with an agency? No.
Speaker 20
7:18
Okay. all right is there anyone behind the column that i need to call on no okay just you okay all
Speaker 6
7:36
right i believe that has completed i don't know if our live streaming has been brought up to speed or
Speaker 18
7:44
not but that is going to be a very important part and i do appreciate those who have texted in i didn't see the text but i know uh one also went to representative ray and he was able to let me know that the live streaming was not up so that is going to be a very critical part for those of you who do have constituents or stakeholder groups that are going to be showing up to testify on bills just to let you know what the process is just like in years past they would sign up they
would come in through the door that's over here to the right sign in that they want to speak as as much as the seats that are in here are available they would be allowed to sit in here but then any overflow would be sent down the hall where i believe they're going to be able to watch proceedings on live streaming down there and they will we will let them know when it is their turn to come and provide testimony so there is going to be ample opportunity for the public
to be able to attend and to be able to participate just like we've done in past sessions it will just be just have a couple of extra steps in terms of just having them in queue and making sure that there's adequate notice. Okay. Before we adjourn this organizational meeting, thank you so much for being here again. If you have any, matter of fact, I'm just going to open it up right now
for you to give feedback to my suggestion that we not meet on Mondays until the agenda. Is that okay? Okay, I see one thumbs up. I'm assuming, okay, there's a number of thumbs up. Great. Thank you very much. So that will be the schedule that we will, we will hold, which will be Wednesdays. Okay, the live stream is working now. Okay. So as far as I know, we, we are going to be meeting
next Wednesday unless there is a conflict because it is the presidential inauguration day. Someone had indicated to me that they thought that maybe one of the rules actually speaks to that issue that we would not meet, but I have not received that confirmation. So please be looking for emails to let you know whether we would be meeting next Wednesday. I hope we will so that we don't get behind, but for right now we're in pretty good shape. We only have five bills that have been referred to the committee.
So this is your last opportunity to ask any question or make any comment. Mr. Vice Chair, you have anything? Okay. Well, then we are adjourned. Thank you.
Agenda
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — INSURANCE & COMMERCE- HOUSE, Jan 13, 2021 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 1
Speaker 6
Eric Munson
Unverified
Speaker 13
Speaker 18
Speaker 20