Bloomberg Information
Since 1975, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has strengthened the “quintessentially American” muni market, Securities and Trade Fee Chairman Paul Atkins mentioned in a speech delivered on the MSRB’s fiftieth Anniversary Celebration Tuesday night.
Most communities cannot afford to finance large-scale public amenities with the assets they’ve accessible, Atkins mentioned. The “multi-trillion greenback” muni securities market deploys capital to the place it issues probably the most, he mentioned, citing examples together with faculties, roads and hospitals.
“Bond by bond, venture by venture the muni market has helped to construct the areas and locations the place American life unfolds,” Atkins mentioned, including that whereas hundreds of communities profit from muni bonds, “the market is not any much less important to the hundreds of thousands of People who personal them.”
Nonetheless, the number of issuers and “distinctive traits of income streams” that make the muni market “so compelling” can also render it “quite complicated to navigate,” Atkins mentioned. That is why the MSRB’s work “to democratize data” is especially helpful, he mentioned.
“For instance the appearance of EMMA practically twenty years in the past remodeled what was a severely fragmented disclosure system,” the SEC chairman mentioned in a reference to the MSRB’s Digital Municipal Market Entry web site.
Atkins additionally cited the MSRB’s efforts via its Training Heart to bolster the general public’s understanding of the municipal securities market.
“For 50 years MSRB has fulfilled its mandate of safeguarding the muni bond market by assembly [the] evolving wants of issuers, traders and communities alike,” the SEC chairman mentioned.
The MSRB occasion, held on the Nationwide Museum of Girls within the Arts in Washington, D.C., additionally included video of recorded remarks from Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala, and Rep. Rudy Yakym, R-Ind., who co-chair the Home Municipal Finance Caucus.
“As a lot of you already know, I used to be a public finance lawyer earlier than I got here to Congress,” Sewell mentioned. “I had the chance to see firsthand the influence that municipal bonds can have on underserved communities.”
Via its guidelines and information sharing, the MSRB protects metropolis officers, traders, municipal advisors, underwriters and brokers from the beginning of the underwriting course of to the total maturity of the bonds, she mentioned.
Sewell mentioned she was proud to co-chair the Home Municipal Finance Caucus with Yakym, her “pal and fellow Methods and Means colleague.” Within the caucus, “we elevate the voices of the municipal finance neighborhood and educate our colleagues within the Home of Representatives concerning the significance of public finance,” she mentioned.
“Whereas our points could seem difficult, now we have a easy bi-partisan purpose,” Sewell mentioned. “That’s to put money into our communities to strengthen infrastructure, saving tax {dollars} and creating jobs.”
