José Cisneros is the elected Treasurer of the City and County of San Francisco. As Treasurer, Treasurer Cisneros serves as the City's banker and chief investment officer, and manages tax and revenue collection for San Francisco. Treasurer Cisneros believes that his role of safeguarding the city's money should extend to all San Franciscans and, as such, has embarked upon an ambitious financial empowerment agenda since taking office. The most known of these programs is an innovative public-private partnership to bank the unbanked called Bank on San Francisco, launched in 2006. Today Bank On programs are being replicated by nearly 100 cities and states nationwide, spurring the creation of Bank On USA by the US Department of the Treasury.
Treasurer Cisneros has since launched the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE). Its newest initiatives include Kindergarten to College, the first universal matched children's savings account program in a public school system in the country and CurrenC SF, an employer-focused initiative designed to make electronic pay universal for all workers in San Francisco.
To further this work on a national level, San Francisco joined with New York City to create the Cities for Financial Empowerment coalition, a group of pioneering municipal governments from across the country working to advance innovative financial empowerment initiatives.