The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced two upcoming roundtables, one focused on assigned credit ratings, the other on ways to improve the transparency and efficiency of fixed income markets.

The fixed income roundtable on April 16 will focus on the corporate bond and municipal securities markets, which were the subject of a Commission report in July that made a variety of recommendations to improve pre-trade and post-trade price transparency in the municipal securities market and strengthen brokers' existing obligations to provide investors with best execution and fair pricing. The roundtable is intended to provide an in-depth discussion of these recommendations and whether they could be applied to the corporate bond market.

The roundtable on May 14 stems from a report on assigned credit ratings SEC staff released in December.

The report was mandated by a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act authored by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). It required the SEC to examine conflicts of interest among credit ratings agencies and proceed with rulemaking on assigned credit ratings if doing so was deemed “necessary or appropriate to protect the public interest or investors.”

Two weeks ago, Franken and Wicker sent a letter to the SEC urging it to schedule that roundtable within the next three months. "I hope that shortly after the roundtable, the SEC finally uses its authority to propose needed regulations that reform the credit rating industry,” Franken said in a statement.

Both roundtables will be held at the SEC's Washington, D.C. headquarters, are open to the public, and will be webcast live. Information on the agenda and participants will be issued in the coming days.