The Securities and Exchange Commission's whistle-blower program has allowed the agency to operate more efficiently, its chairman said in Congressional testimony Thursday.

Speaking before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Protection Act, SEC chairman Elisse B. Walter said the agency has proposed or adopted rules for more than 80% of the more than 90 provisions that require rulemaking.

In addition, the SEC has finalized 17 of the more than 20 studies and reports that Dodd-Frank Act directs the agency to complete.

“While this has been a challenge, the considerable progress the Commission has made is a direct result of the thoughtful, thorough and professional efforts of our staff, whose efforts in fulfilling the Dodd-Frank Act mandates have come in addition to carrying their normal workloads,” Ms. Walter said.

Among the programs outlined in Ms. Walter's detailed testimony was the whistle-blower program established by Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act. As previously reported by the SEC's Office of the Whistleblower, in fiscal year 2012 the SEC received 3,001 tips from whistle-blowers in the U.S. and 49 other countries.

“The high quality information that we have been receiving from whistle-blowers has, in many instances, allowed our investigative staff to work more efficiently and permitted us to better utilize agency resources,” Ms. Walter said. She noted that in August, the Commission made its first award under the whistle-blower program. “We expect future payments to further increase the visibility and effectiveness of this important enforcement initiative.”

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Among other programs discussed by Ms. Walters was the agency's implementation of Dodd-Frank's provisions on “say-on-pay” and clawback provisions, both of which have been of concern to businesses.

She said in January 2011 the commission adopted rules that require public companies subject to the federal proxy rules to provide a shareholder advisory “say-on-pay” vote on executive compensation.

Ms. Walters also said the SEC staff “is working diligently on developing recommendations for the commission concerning the implementation” of provisions in the Dodd-Frank concerning clawbacks, among other Dodd-Frank provisions related to corporate governance and executive compensation.

“The Dodd Frank Act has required the SEC to undertake the largest and most complex rulemaking in the history of the agency,” Ms. Walters said in her concluding remarks. “To date, a tremendous amount of progress has been made to implement that agenda, including significant effort intended to increase transparency, mitigate risk, protect against market abuse in security-based swap markets, improve the oversight of credit rating agencies and hedge fund and other private fund advisers, and develop a better understanding of the systemic risk presented by large private funds.”