RTRS Inter-Dealer Regulatory Dollar Price Reporting Requirement Effective February 25, 2013
The MSRB will make effective on February 25, 2013 previously deferred changes to MSRB transaction reporting requirements that would require brokers, dealers and municipal securities dealers (collectively “dealers”) to report for inter-dealer transactions the contractual dollar price at which the transaction was executed.[1] All dealers that report inter-dealer transactions to the MSRB Real-Time Transaction Reporting System (“RTRS”) will need to make preparations for this change.
BACKGROUND
Inter-dealer transaction reporting is accomplished by both the purchasing and selling dealers submitting information about the transaction to the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s (“DTCC”) Real-Time Trade Matching System (“RTTM”). Information submitted to RTTM is forwarded to the RTRS for trade reporting. Requiring dealers to report for inter-dealer transactions the contractual dollar price at which the transaction was executed, in addition to the information currently reported, would provide RTRS with an additional data point to use in its evaluation of which dollar price should be disseminated from RTRS for price transparency purposes. This requirement was previously scheduled to become effective on November 5, 2012 but was postponed due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy on DTCC’s systems.[2]
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
MSRB and DTCC have coordinated system changes to RTRS and RTTM to add the contractual dollar price as a new reporting data field on inter-dealer transactions. On January 23, 2012, DTCC published technical specifications detailing the new data field that will be used by dealers to report the contractual dollar price, named the “Regulatory Dollar Price” field, on inter-dealer transactions.[3] An updated RTRS specifications document that describes this change is provided below and also is available on the trade data page of the Market Disclosures and Data section of the MSRB website.
SYSTEM TESTING
MSRB and DTCC have made a test environment available for dealers and their agents to make test submissions of inter-dealer trades to RTRS. MSRB and DTCC also have suggested test cases accessible from the link below that can be used to gauge dealer readiness for the new reporting requirement.
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Questions about testing RTRS should be directed to MSRB Support at 703-797-6668. Questions about this notice may be directed to Justin R. Pica, Director, Product Management - Market Transparency at 703-797-6716.
January 31, 2013
