The financial system has grown into one of the most important powers of everyday life. If it works well, it finances businesses, insures us against risks and helps us build a sustainable future. But when finance is unstable, whole economies crash. If investments only are for profit, they foster fossil fuels and climate change becomes unstoppable. When there is excessive speculation on food, price fluctuations lead to widespread hunger. Apparently we are not yet in agreement on how to make the financial system work.
While most people have an opinion on complex topics such as nuclear power, religion or the weapon industry, financial regulation is regarded to be such a complicated domain that we do not get to talk to regulators and finance professionals face to face.
The Civil Financial Regulation Office (CFRO) was founded to challenge this imbalance in power and knowledge. We are interviewing experts working in all the different institutions that are meant to regulate financial markets and ask them to explain what they do and why. The questions we ask are gathered from the general public through our website and interviews. Step by step we find answers and publish them on our website.
The CFRO is a citizens initiative that started in Greece and is run by researchers from all over Europe. It will collect answers until the 7th of December and protocol everything on this website. CFRO is represented at the 6th Athens Biennale and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the Schöpflin Foundation and the Peng!-collective.