Products August 20, 2008

SEC’s IDEA To Replace EDGAR Database

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ushers its financial reporting capabilities into a new era with the successor to the EDGAR database.
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The new system is called IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. The SEC said in a release that it will give investors faster and easier access to financial information about public companies and mutual funds.

Built on completely new architecture, the new system will at first supplement and then eventually replace the 1980s-based EDGAR system, according to the SEC. With IDEA, the tedious task of sifting through forms one at a time will be eliminated, and investors will be able to immediately congregate information from thousands of companies and forms.

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The SEC said it is ready for “the new world of financial disclosure’ interactive data will present. The agency has formally proposed requiring U.S. companies to provide financial information using interactive data beginning as early as next year, and separately has proposed requiring mutual funds to submit their public filings using interactive data.


Compliance August 20, 2008

MSRB Revises Series 51 Exam

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) said it revised its exam for 529 college savings plan dealers.
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The revisions feature a rebalancing of topics in the Municipal Fund Securities Limited Principal Qualifications Examination (Series 51). While no content will change, the weightings of subjects in the exam will better reflect developments in the market, the board said in a release.

While the MSRB doesn’t reveal details about the questions of its exams for obvious reasons, the release said the changes will cover categories such as product knowledge, sales supervision, and operations.

The revised Series 51 examination program will be implemented on November 1. The new version remains a 60-question test to be completed in 90 minutes, the MSRB said. Candidates for the Series 51 must also have passed the General Securities Principal Examination (Series 24) or the Investment Company Products/Variable Contracts Limited Principal Examination (Series 26), or they must take and pass either of these examinations concurrently with the Series 51 Examination in order to become a municipal fund securities limited principal.

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More information from the MSRB is available here.

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