On May 22, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved certain amendments to MSRB Rule G-14 related to transaction reporting, which became effective on July 18, 2016. MSRB Rule G-14 requires dealers to report all executed transactions in most municipal securities to the MSRB’s Real-Time Transaction Reporting System (RTRS) within 15 minutes of the time of trade, with limited exceptions. RTRS serves the dual objectives of price transparency and market surveillance. The MSRB makes transaction data for transparency purposes available to the general public through the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website at no cost, and disseminates such data through paid subscription services to market data vendors, institutional market participants and others that subscribe to the data feed.
Specifically, the MSRB has stated that these amendments to Rule G-14 will enhance the post-trade price transparency information provided through RTRS by:
- Expanding the application of the existing list offering price and takedown indicator to cases involving distribution participant dealers and takedown transactions that are not at a discount from the list offering price;
- Eliminating the requirement for dealers to report yield on customer trade reports and, instead, enabling the MSRB to calculate and disseminate yield on customer trades;
- Establishing a new indicator for customer trades involving non- transaction-based compensation arrangements; and
- Establishing a new indicator for alternative trading system (ATS) transactions.
FINRA obtained SEC approval to make similar changes to the post-trade reporting requirements for its members with respect to securities eligible for FINRA’s Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE), which also became effective on July 18, 2016.
For more guidance related to this topic, please refer to MSRB Regulatory Notice 2016-09.
