SEC To Replace EDGAR With 'IDEA', by K.C. Jones, InformationWeek, Aug. 19, 2008.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intends to supplement its aging EDGAR system and eventually replace it with a new one called Interactive Data Electronic Applications (Idea). It hopes to make Internet searches about publicly held companies and mutual funds simpler and more comprehensive and make data easier to downloaded to spreadsheets, entered in databases, and compared.

The SEC said the move would allow it to transition from collecting forms and documents to making the information freely available to investors. The new system should also provide current information in a format that is easy to access, collate, sift through, and compile into new reports.

Most SEC filings have used the Edgar format, which has limited investors and others who want to examine information about public companies to viewing one form at a time.

Everyone knows about the SEC's EDGAR database. Now, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, a self-regulatory organization established by Congress to develop rules for broker-dealers and banks that underwrite, trade and sell municipal securities, has launched a pilot project, EMMA (Electronic Municipal Market Access). EMMA is an Internet-based disclosure portal that provides free public access to disclosure documents and real-time municipal securities trade price data for the municipal securities market. The EMMA website is now accessible at emma.msrb.org

Dirt Diggers Digest alerted us to this story:

For more than a decade, key corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission have been available to the public at no charge through the EDGAR website. This has been a boon for transparency and a godsend for researchers.

During the same period, those who wanted to access analogous documents on tax-exempt bonds filed with the lesser known Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) have had to use commercial services such as Munistatements and DPC Data that charge hefty subscription or pay-per-view fees.

Now that is beginning to change. This week MSRB introduced EMMA (short for Electronic Municipal Market Access), which is described as “an Internet-based disclosure portal.” The key document EMMA will disclose is the Official Statement (OS), a prospectus that issuing agencies publish with details on new municipal securities.