DPC DATA Launches MuniGUARD News Service, Dedicated to Municipal Bond Research for Disclosure and Surveillance

ROSELAND, N.J., Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- DPC DATA, provider of information solutions to municipal bond traders, advisors and investors, today announced the launch of MuniGUARD® News, the first news service for municipal market professionals, designed to deliver news linked to bond issues and obligors. The service enables dealers and advisors to address their expanding regulatory requirements for pre-sale disclosure to investors, as well to address ongoing surveillance of holdings.

"When dealers recently were advised by regulators that the material information to be disclosed prior to selling a municipal bond should include not only officially filed disclosures, but also information available from other sources, the search for relevant news became a costly and time-consuming challenge," said Michael Ruvo, president of DPC DATA. "DPC DATA has been committed to streamlining other disclosure challenges, so we took on this one as well. With the support of a large advisory team of industry professionals, we developed MuniGUARD News precisely to dealer content and IT specifications."

Ten large dealer and clearing firms contributed to the design and development of MuniGUARD News. Four firms served as beta sites.

Built on proprietary intelligent technology, the MuniGUARD News Relevancy Index filters thousands of news stories daily, largely from local and regional sources, seeking connections with bond issues, including their obligors, issuers, locations and sectors. The results are presented to subscribers as a list of titles related to a bond's identifying CUSIP® number, showing each story's relevancy to that particular bond. Clicking on the title opens the full text of the story.

MuniGUARD News is currently offered as an extension of the MuniPOINTS®-based disclosure compliance solution, used today by more than 100,000 industry professionals. This "in-context" solution is provided where dealers and advisors need it – on trading platforms. MuniPOINTS fact sheets are accessed by the click of a button at the most granular CUSIP-9 bond listing. Subsequent access to secondary disclosures, including all publicly filed material event notices and financial disclosures, is provided by MuniDOCS® Online. Now subscribers can upgrade this solution to include access to recent related news stories as well.

MuniGUARD News will also be available as an extension of the MuniGUARD surveillance service, which tracks disclosure activity on bond holdings or bonds of interest for professionals and investors.

"Through redistribution licenses with bona fide news sources, MuniGUARD News delivers professionally reported and copyrighted news content. This was a repeated requirement from our advisory group, who wanted a more credible alternative to screen-scraping services or luck-of-the-draw Internet searches," said Peter Schmitt, CEO of DPC DATA. "Because of our proprietary indexing technology, only DPC DATA could have linked news not only to the universe of active issues, but also to obligors, which are the fulcrum of credit risk. We are proud to have met these requirements and look forward to enhancing our disclosure compliance services as needs evolve."

For more information about DPC DATA disclosure solutions, please contact us at [email protected].

About DPC DATA

DPC DATA Inc., founded in 1992, is the leading provider of disclosure-related data products and specialized data services to the municipal industry. Its customers include more than 600 financial institutions and information intermediaries. DPC DATA is a privately held firm, headquartered in Roseland, NJ. For more information please visit www.DPCDATA.com or e-mail us at [email protected].

MuniPOINTS, MuniDOCS and MuniGUARD are registered trademarks of DPC DATA Inc. CUSIP is a registered trademark of the American Bankers Association.

SOURCE DPC DATA Inc.