Questions about subscriptions to the Service may be directed to Thomas A. Hutton, Director, Municipal Securities Information Library System. Questions about rule G-14 may be directed to Larry M. Lawrence, Policy and Technology Advisor, and those about technical requirements and operational aspects may be directed to the Transaction Reporting Assistants at the Board’s offices.

On August 19, 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the Board’s plan to institute a service (the "Service") to provide a daily public report summarizing prices and volumes of trading in the municipal securities market during the previous day (the "Combined Daily Report")¹. Since August 24, 1998, the Combined Daily Report has been produced on an operational basis and has been available by subscription to information vendors and any other interested parties. The fee for an annual subscription to the Service is $15,000.

The Board’s World-Wide Web site (http://www.msrb.org) now contains all information needed by dealers to comply with the transaction reporting requirements of rule G-14. Via this site, dealers may access:

• The User’s Manual for Customer Transaction Reporting (User’s Manual), describing the required data and procedures for reporting customer transactions and for producing files that must be sent to the Board daily by any dealer that effects a transaction with a customer.

• Questions and Answers on Transaction Reporting, addressing frequently-asked questions regarding both inter-dealer and customer transaction reporting.

• Dealer Identifiers, including the names of securities firms and bank dealers, together with their NASD-assigned identifying symbols which must be used to identify each reported trade.

• Examples of Combined Daily Reports, summarizing price and volume information on all transactions in municipal securities.

The Board has published several notices detailing the importance of timely and accurate trade reporting and noting that dealers must do the best possible job of reporting their transactions accurately and on trade date². Any trade reported after trade date, and any amendment or cancelation of a trade report, calls into question the completeness and accuracy of the Combined Daily Reports. Dealers are again reminded of the requirement to report every trade on trade date and to review their internal procedures to minimize the need for any change to trade data after it is submitted.

To help dealers comply with rule G-14, the Board’s Web site now provides, among other things, the following information on timely and accurate reporting:

• "Reporting Customer Trades" (Section 4 of the User’s Manual)

• "Amending and Canceling Trades" (Q&A numbers 34-46)

• "Submitting Files" (Q&A numbers 13-15)

• "Problems in Inter-Dealer Transaction Reporting" (Q&A number 81)

February 1, 1999

ENDNOTES

1. See Securities and Exchange Act Release No. 40337 (August 19, 1998).

2. Notices describe requirements for both inter-dealer and customer reporting. See, e.g., "Public Reporting of Transactions in Municipal Securities," MSRB Reports, Vol. 18, No. 2 (August 1998) at 25-27; "Reminder – G-14 Customer Transaction Reporting Program," MSRB Reports, Vol. 17, No. 1 (October 1997) at 9; "Rule G-14 Transaction Reporting Procedures – Time of Trade Reporting," MSRB Reports, Vol. 16, No. 3 (September 1996) at 17-18; "Guidelines for Reporting Inter-Dealer Transactions under Rule G-14," MSRB Reports, Vol. 16, No. 2 (June 1996) at 9-12. Dealers also receive from the Board descriptions of any errors found, and corrective actions needed, regarding customer trades they report each day.

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