What's new with the MSRB's price transparency system

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Wednesday launched a re-engineered and modernized version of its Real-Time Transaction Reporting System.

The MSRB said in a release that this latest version of the 13-year-old RTRS system is the culmination of a three year effort to re-engineer its underlying technology.

Created in January 2005, RTRS requires dealers to report information about most of their trades in the municipal securities market within 15 minutes of execution.

The near-real time trade data was made publicly available on the MSRB’s EMMA website in 2008. The board said it currently processes about 39,000 trade reports each day from the one million of munis that are outstanding.

MSRB 's Lynnette Kelly

The updated RTRS improves the way errors are detected and assigned, as well as strengthens the security and reliability of the system. It also features streamlined navigation of the data and an enhanced display of information, the board said.

“RTRS is now better equipped to respond to an evolving municipal market and adapt as needed to future regulatory requirements,” said MSRB President and CEO Lynnette Kelly.

The updated RTRS “will contribute to improved data quality and respond to significant service disruptions in this vital market transparency system,” she said.

The MSRB began developing a daily summary report of bonds traded between dealers in 1995 – a first step toward providing price transparency in the muni market. In 1998, it expanded the daily reports to include dealer trades with customers. In 2005, the MSRB required dealers to submit trade data to it within 15 minutes of execution of trades and made comprehensive near-real-time trade reports available to the public.

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