The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Tuesday filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the Municipal Securities Representative Qualification Examination known as the Series 52.
The proposed changes reflect a recent review of the Series 52 exam by industry members and MSRB staff, the board said.
It wants to implement the revised Series 52 examination program on Jan. 3, 2011. The test is administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Specifically, the MSRB is proposing to increase the length of the examination from 100 to 115 questions.
It also wants to make several changes to the study outline. They include regrouping certain topics to reflect more detailed testing of product knowledge and MSRB rules, eliminating redundancy, deleting dated references to topics in the current outline, providing detail about products covered in the examination, and incorporating generic terms instead of proprietary names.
Under MSRB Rule G-3, the activities of a muni securities representative include: underwriting, trading or selling municipal securities; rendering financial advisory or consultant services to issuers of municipal securities; providing research or investment advice; or communications with customers about any of these activities.
As an alternative to taking the Series 52, an individual may qualify as a municipal securities representative by taking the more general Series 7 examination. Those who completed the Series 6 exam on investment company products may qualify as “limited” muni representatives, the MSRB said.
