WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring a new educational avenue — podcasts.
The MSRB on Tuesday is rolling out its first in a series of podcasts, called MSRB Podcast, focusing on topics from political contributions to professional qualifications to its annual fact book.
“I think fundamentally we want to make sure that people have an understanding of the municipal market, our activities,” said Ritta McLaughlin, MSRB chief education officer. “We want to make sure that some of the more complex topics in the market, that they’re actually distilled in a way that could provide sort of greater clarity regarding the uniqueness of the characteristics of our market.”
The first episode will focus on municipal market yield curves and indices, with MSRB Chief Market Structure Officer John Bagley speaking on attributes that make municipal yield curves distinct from other fixed-income benchmarks.
The series will take on an interview format, with the MSRB speaking on the topics for about 12 to 30 minutes.
On April 23, the MSRB will release a podcast on Rule G-3 on professional qualification requirements and talk about why individuals must meet minimum qualifications to engage in municipal securities dealer and advisory activities.
The MSRB’s podcast on its annual factbook will be available on May 7 and will hone in on municipal market trading patterns, primary market and continuing disclosures and interest rate resets for municipal variable rate securities.
The MSRB will also release a podcast on May 21, focusing on regulation of political contributions.
Stakeholders voiced support for the podcast, said Lynnette Kelly, MSRB president and CEO. She added that people want to consume information at their convenience in different formats, so the podcast series was the natural next step.
“We don’t do anything here until we get a lot of stakeholder feedback, so there’s been a lot of formal and informal conversations around our compliance program, for example, around our education program and how we deliver what topics is always front and center,” Kelly said.
The MSRB first started releasing a few podcasts in 2014, McLaughlin said, and those will be recast with the new and made available.
“It’s exciting and it’s new and innovative and instead of just resting on our laurels, we really do continually try to reach our stakeholders, so this is yet another example of that,” Kelly said.
The MSRB Podcast is free to listen to and will be available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and on the MSRB’s website.
