The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board said its board has approved the filing of amendments to its Rule G-14 on reports of sales or purchases to make "substantive changes" to time-shortening transaction reporting requirements approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year that have yet to take effect.
Last September, the MSRB received SEC approval to amend Rule G-14 to shorten the timeframe for reporting most municipal securities trades to the MSRB's Real-time Transaction Reporting System to one minute. Currently, dealers are required to report trades within 15 minutes. The SEC also approved a phased-in exception for trades with a manual component that would gradually shorten the required reporting time to 5 minutes.
The board's action, which occurred Thursday during its previously scheduled meeting and was announced in a Friday press release, comes after the MSRB announced Feb. 5 that it would delay setting an effective date for those requirements.
Thursday's board action also follows the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's statement that it intends to amend its similar rule for trade reporting of Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine-eligible securities, the release said.
The MSRB's filing "will maintain regulatory consistency across the corporate and municipal bond markets," Friday's release said, adding that the filing "will also respond to extensive and valuable input" provided to the MSRB by market participants.
"As always, stakeholder engagement is an essential part of the regulatory process for the self-regulatory model, but the feedback loop does not stop once a rule is approved by the SEC," MSRB CEO Mark Kim said in the release. "We appreciate the willingness of market participants to share with us their perspectives as MSRB remains committed to ongoing dialogue and ensuring that further amendments to Rule G-14 are coordinated with FINRA, which is contemplating similar changes to its own trade reporting rule."
Instead of establishing an effective date for the SEC-approved amendments in their current form, the MSRB intends to file further amendments to Rule G-14 with the SEC, "which are expected, at a minimum, to establish less significant reductions to current reporting timeframes for manual trades," the release said.
After the new amendments are filed, they will be published for public comment in the Federal Register and will require the SEC's approval before becoming effective, the release said. Upon approval of the amendments, the MSRB will continue to coordinate with FINRA to establish an effective date, the release said.
Also at its meeting Thursday, the board voted to withdraw its "pre-trade concept release," published in January. The release is being withdrawn "to ensure stakeholders have adequate time and resources to focus on providing any additional comments or feedback regarding further amendments to Rule G-14," the Friday press release said.
The MSRB published the concept release to seek "public comment on a potential initiative to collect pre-trade data for certain municipal securities," a January MSRB press release said.
"The release marks an exploratory phase in MSRB's ongoing efforts to assess opportunities for enhanced market transparency," the January release said.
