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"Our priorities this year include taking a fresh look at our rules for regulated entities for relevancy and consistency with other regulators, and continuing to enhance our Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website to improve market transparency." - Jay Goldstone, Chair
Lynnette Kelly, Executive Director |
The mission of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) is to protect investors, state and local governments and related entities, and the public interest by promoting a fair and efficient municipal market. We are honored to lead the MSRB at a time when our mission is of such critical importance to the many participants in the $3.7 trillion municipal market.
While the word “rulemaking” is an important part of our name and what we do, the MSRB is committed to finding alternative, cost-effective solutions to address market challenges. These include promoting market transparency, providing education, promoting vigorous enforcement of existing rules, hosting outreach programs and providing leadership in the municipal market.
Our priorities for the fiscal year that began October 1, 2012, include taking a fresh look at our rules for regulated entities with two goals in mind. We want to ensure that the rules continue to be relevant given current market conditions and we also want to determine whether there are cases in which we could provide greater consistency with other regulators to improve efficiency in the market. Creating new rules for municipal advisors is also on our agenda this year pending action by the Securities and Exchange Commission to define municipal advisors. We hope to establish a set of core rules for municipal advisors so that state and local governments are afforded further protections in their municipal finance transactions.
We also intend to continue enhancing our Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website to improve market transparency, particularly with regard to pre-trade price transparency and continuing disclosure. The EMMA website is a free resource that is always available to all market participants, and new features and functionality planned for the year will be directed at the many different types of users of the site. The MSRB also will continue to focus on providing market leadership and conducting education and outreach to help state and local governments that issue bonds meet their disclosure obligations to investors.
We encourage you to explore the MSRB’s website for the most up-to-date information about our priority initiatives and to read our long-range plan for market transparency. Our website also provides additional information related to the MSRB’s governance, finances and operations to help ensure that our own organization meets the highest standards of corporate governance.
As a self-regulatory organization, we rely on regular input from market participants to help us shape our priorities and initiatives. There are many ways to communicate with the MSRB and we encourage you to take advantage of those opportunities. Whether through the formal process of responding to requests for comment on potential rules, or through contact forms on the MSRB websites, we appreciate and carefully review and consider each and every response we receive. Input from a wide variety of market stakeholders helps us ensure that our efforts contribute to our goal of a fair and efficient municipal market.
Thank you.
Jay Goldstone, Chair Lynnette Kelly, Executive Director