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An SEC plan would make municipal bond information free to the public via the Electronic Municipal Market Access system
Investors in municipal bonds may one day be cozying up to EMMA. The acronym stands for Electronic Municipal Market Access system, which, if the SEC has its way, would make financial-disclosure information and other data on municipal bonds available to the public for free. Currently, issuers of municipal bonds-typically a city or state that wants to raise money for capital projects-disclose this information to a variety of for-profit entities, which in turn sell to investors. Under new amendments proposed by the SEC, however, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board would serve as the central repository for muni bond information and would use its EMMA platform to make it available online.