Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board - MSRB
Categories: Muni Bonds, Regulations
Where muni bonds go to be governed.
Most of the MSRB's activities revolve around proper disclosure of risks, venues in which muni bonds can be properly sold, and various tax allocations for investors.
Why is this even a Thing? Well, in the early pioneer-ish days of American cities raising cash for improvements on their own, you can imagine that there was a whole lot o' graft and corruption going on. So, in order to avoid hugely embarrassing bad acting on the part of issuing cities, the Feds created an NGO, which pushed locals to create their own policing actions. In doing so, problems were at least hopefully identified very early in the process, so that Joan Q. Public wasn't bilked out of the $10,000 investment in a "safe" muni bond...a bond she thought was going toward the build of a lovely park with ducks, but instead went into the pockets of the mayor's mistress for their great escapes to Rio.
So yes, the MSRB is very complicated and serious. No smiling allowed.