(Reuters). The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requested Wednesday information about the financial information providers to address growing concerns regarding their potential influence on investments decisions.

Critics have expressed concerns that information providers, particularly index companies such as S&P Global (NYSE:), MSCI and Russell which assist in trillions of dollars of investment decisions globally, have acted as unregulated investment advisors.

Gary Gensler (chair of the U.S. SEC) stated that information providers play an important role in today’s securities law. He said this in a statement.

SEC treats index publishers as data providers at the moment.

According to the statement, this information will be used by the watchdog in order for it to determine whether or not information providers need regulation, considering the impact of information companies on investment decisions.