he Green Sheet has reported on the mergers and acquisitions occurring throughout the financial services industry, as well as on concerns about the privacy of consumer financial information.

We've also reported on identity theft, fraud prevention and issues around compliance with card association regulations for protecting payment information. With the ongoing consolidation of companies within the industry, the instantaneous transmission of consumer data across networks and the unauthorized selling and sharing of the information are raising more concerns than ever with consumers and legislators.

In January 2004, the Consumer Federation of California (CFC) Education Foundation issued what it says is the first published report of financial industry privacy practices. The CFC surveyed the practices that the largest banks, insurers, brokerage firms and credit card issuers in California have put in place, and that go beyond the minimum requirements of federal law, to protect their customers.

The CFC assigned 51 financial institutions letter grades-from 'A' to 'F'-based on the controls they voluntarily place on the sharing of their non-public personal information. The grades are meant to give an indication of the entities' privacy practices and the level of control consumers have over their own information. Two-thirds of the financial institutions surveyed received poor or failing grades.

California currently has the strongest consumer financial privacy protection in the country; in September 2003, the California Financial Information Privacy Act of 2003 was passed. In December 2003, however, President Bush signed federal legislation that is expected to overturn a major portion of the state law. To read the entire report, visit www.consumerfedofca.org/edufund.html .