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; mstanton@buildamerica.com
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SOURCE Build America Mutual