Operation HOPE to Launch Ranking of Top 25 Financial Institutions for Retail Investors

ATLANTA, Aug. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Operation HOPE today announced the launch of its inaugural Top 25 Financial Institutions for Retail Investors ranking, based on each organization's commitment to providing financial literacy, knowledge and transparency for customers. As an outgrowth of its Investors' Bill of Rights, leading experts in financial regulation, securities law, fintech, customer engagement, and financial literacy will be retained to develop an annual survey of U.S. financial service, asset management and brokerage firms for calendar year 2021.

Institutions will be evaluated on their efforts in delivering financial literacy education and credit counseling, ensuring investors' understanding of securities and their appropriateness, providing transparency on transaction costs and sharing information on meetings with management as well as its holdings. It is anticipated that the Top 25 Financial Institutions for Retail Investors ranking will be published in the first half of 2022.

In February 2021, Operation HOPE announced its Investors' Bill of Rights to address the greater need for individual investor protections. Authored by Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman & CEO, John HOPE Bryant and Jay Clayton, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair, the Investors' Bill of Rights is a call to financial institutions to provide greater financial literacy, knowledge, and transparency for retail investors. The 10-point Bill of Rights is based on the nearly 30 years of experience that Operation HOPE has garnered through providing free financial literacy coaching and credit counseling services to more than 4 million individuals and small businesses.

The Bill of Rights' 10-point plan focuses on four key aspects of investor education:

• Retail Investor Education
• Retail Investor Qualification and Educational Incentives
• Improved Transparency of Transactions Cost and Incentives
• Disclosures by Large Investors

The Bill of Rights is a call for the entire financial industry to provide financial literacy and education to the next generation of investors. If you're interested in joining  as a signatory to the Investor Bill of Rights or participating in Operation Hope's other initiatives, please reach out to Kevin Boucher, [email protected]. To read the full 10-point plan proposal, visit Operation HOPE's Investors' Bill of Rights at www.operationhope.org.

About Operation HOPE

Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights'" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through our community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters and homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. Project 5117 is our multi-year four-pronged approach to combating economic inequality that aims to improve financial literacy, increase business role models and business internships for youth in underserved communities, and stabilize the American dream by boosting FICO scores. Operation HOPE recently received its seventh consecutive 4-star charity rating for fiscal management and commitment to transparency and accountability by the prestigious non-profit evaluator, Charity Navigator.

For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Press Contacts:

Bill Mendel
(212) 397-1030
[email protected]

Lalohni Campbell
(404) 593-7145
 [email protected]

SOURCE Operation HOPE