The EMMA Pilot Today

EMMA is a work in progress, with the functionalities available on-line and the quality of the information provided to the public expected to evolve over time. At launch, EMMA will provide the MSRB's complete official statement and advance refunding document collection searchable by various data elements collected for indexing purposes at the time of submission. The EMMA pilot includes a robust search capability based on these parameters that makes virtually all documents and trade data easily obtainable by entering basic information about a particular security.

The indexing parameters currently available to EMMA from the initial document submission system may not be ideally suited for all situations, however, particularly where new CUSIP numbers have been assigned due to secondary market activity following the initial submission of documents to the MSRB. As a result, on occasion, the relevant document may be more difficult to find. The MSRB is committed to closing gaps in the data linking documents to their related securities and expects such occasional difficulties to become increasingly rare as improvements are made to EMMA throughout this pilot phase. In addition, EMMA is dependent on compliance with document and data submission requirements under MSRB rules. Failure to make a required submission, or inaccuracies in the indexing information provided at the time of submission, may result in a document or related data not being available from EMMA or, if available, more difficult to find. The MSRB hopes that users will provide feedback through the Feedback Form whenever a gap is detected.

Give us your feedback on this site

EMMA's Future

The next phase of EMMA will be launched in conjunction with the transition to a fully-electronic disclosure system for the new issue market for municipal securities. Beginning in the summer of 2008, MSRB rules for broker-dealers and banks will provide for centralized availability of official statements through EMMA instead of distribution in paper form. Official statements will be posted to the EMMA website on a nearly "real-time" basis and will be indexed using data optimized for purposes of on-line search capabilities. The MSRB expects EMMA users to enjoy significant improvements in access to documents once this next phase is launched.

Finally, the MSRB has designed EMMA with the capabilities to include free on-line access to continuing disclosures provided by municipal issuers and other obligated persons throughout the life of a security. Such disclosures include annual financial information filings and notices of certain material events. This expansion would be dependent on rulemaking by the Securities and Exchange Commission to direct that these disclosures be submitted to the MSRB. If such rulemaking is undertaken, EMMA would make available to the public for free, on a near real-time basis, continuing disclosure documents submitted free of charge by issuers, obligated persons and their agents to EMMA. This additional information would be integrated into the EMMA document and data display to provide comprehensive information for each security.