Lumesis and Build America Mutual Team to Improve Access to Muni Bond Information
NEW YORK, June 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Build America Mutual, the first mutual insurer of US municipal bonds, and Lumesis, Inc. a leading provider of business efficiency, regulatory compliance and data solutions for the municipal market, today announced a joint initiative to improve investors' access to municipal bond credit information by making BAM's Obligor Disclosure Brief (ODB) credit summaries available to users of Lumesis' DIVER Advisor platform.
Municipal bond investors, traders, and sales professionals use BAM's ODBs to make their mandatory reviews of municipal credit quality faster and more efficient, while bond issuers – the public-sector entities that are BAM's members – benefit from increased transparency that can improve the liquidity of their insured and uninsured bonds. BAM publishes an ODB for every issuer it insures, and updates them annually. To date, BAM has published more than 1,800 ODBs.
DIVER Advisor was developed to help the muni bond industry leverage technology to stay ahead of changing compliance obligations around time of trade disclosure, suitability and for those institutions subject to Dodd Frank's standard of creditworthiness. The new integration will allow users to have one-click access to BAM's ODBs for all insured CUSIPs. DIVER Advisor users will also be able to forward the ODBs to their clients for review.
In addition, DIVER Advisor will also flag uninsured CUSIPs that BAM has already pre-approved for its secondary-market insurance program. Bonds insured by BAM in the secondary market can benefit from an improved credit rating and heightened market liquidity.
"BAM's ODBs are a clear complement to the information available on the DIVER Advisor platform. The annual ODB is another example of how we provide our users access to 'material information reasonably accessible' built into their workflow," said Gregg L. Bienstock, Esq., CEO and Co-Founder of Lumesis.
"Improving market transparency is at the core of BAM's mission to serve municipal bond issuers and investors – and that means delivering useful credit information to the market when it's most valuable. Our integration with DIVER Advisor does that, putting the information in the hands of a retail advisor at the moment they need it to help evaluate a bond purchase decision, or explain a credit to their client," said Build America Mutual CEO Seán W. McCarthy.
About Build America Mutual
Build America Mutual improves municipal bond liquidity and market access for issuers by providing municipal bondholders with an unconditional, irrevocable guaranty that principal and interest will be paid on schedule. As a mutual insurer, BAM is operated for the benefit of its members – which are, exclusively, the U.S. cities, counties, towns, and other public-sector entities that use BAM's financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
Through May 15, BAM has written more than 2,000 policies, insuring more than $17 billion of municipal securities. Learn more at http://buildamerica.com/mission/
About Lumesis
Lumesis, Inc. is a financial technology company focused on providing business efficiency, data and regulatory solutions to the municipal bond marketplace. Founded in 2010, Lumesis is completely dedicated to serving the municipal market with industry-leading analysis and compliance solutions that meet the needs of an evolving regulatory environment. Today, the company's DIVER platform helps hundreds of firms with over 40,000 users efficiently meet credit, regulatory and risk needs. Lumesis investors include Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) Learn more at http://www.lumesis.com
For more information, please contact:
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications
212-235-2575; [email protected]
SOURCE Build America Mutual
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