SEC Chair Mary Jo White gave budget testimony to a House committee yesterday and briefly mentioned Money Market Funds. She said, "In June 2013, the Commission proposed additional money market fund reforms. These reforms included two alternative proposals. One is a floating net asset value (NAV) for prime institutional money market funds -- the type of funds that experienced the most significant redemptions during the financial crisis. The other proposal would provide for the use of liquidity fees and redemption gates in times of stress. These proposals could be adopted alone or together, and are designed to lessen money market funds' susceptibility to runs, improve their ability to manage and mitigate potential contagion from high levels of redemptions, and increase the transparency of their risks while preserving many of the benefits of money market funds for investors and the short-term funding markets. Staff has reviewed closely the more than 1,400 letters that were submitted, and adopting a final rule in this area is a priority for the Commission in 2014." The Bond Buyer also reports in "White: SEC Still Mulling Whether to Include Muni MMFs in Reforms," "The Securities and Exchange Commission will release new rules for the reform of money market mutual funds "in the near term," although it has not decided whether they should would apply to municipal funds, SEC chairman Mary Jo White told a House panel Tuesday." See the C-SPAN video at minute 1:04. White comments, "We are in the active stages of discussion towards adoption.... We want our proposal to be robust.... But we are considering all of the ideas and impacts and are sensitive to not damaging gratuitously the product."
