Standard & Poor's Cusip Service Bureau yesterday launched a new service utilizing "push" technology, to deliver Cusip identifiers for competitive and negotiated municipal bond deals to fixed-income market participants every 15 minutes.
The technology will allow the service, known as S&P New Issues on the Web or S&P Now for short, to automatically send out an e-mail alert to participants detailing a new Cusip number that is assigned, said Maria Latorraca, product director.
"It is a way to actively help the market know when a new deal is coming out," she added. The information is a stepping-stone for straight-through processing, as it is beneficial for clearing, trading, and settling, she added.
The Cusip Service Bureau is run by Standard & Poor's for the American Bankers Association and has no ties to Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency, she said.
"With S&P NOW, we are fundamentally changing the delivery of new Cusip numbers to fixed-income and equity markets," said Jim Taylor, managing director, Standard & Poor's, in a prepared statement.
"This simple technology-powered service will help broker-dealers meet new regulatory and business requirements for more fluid and efficient markets, particularly in the fixed income arena."
S&P NOW supports equities, municipal and corporate bonds as well as subsets of these instruments, including IPOs. The service is particularly timely for the municipal bond markets given their recently shortened trade reporting timeframes and the need to access and write trade tickets for the many serial and term bonds associated with each municipal bond offering, Standard & Poor's said.
