SEC moving beyond EDGAR.

• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked software vendors to join it in a major push to give investors online access to mutual fund and corporate information.

The request came in the form of a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the ongoing management of the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system. EDGAR receives about 700,000 filings each year, and more than 375 million online searches were conducted on EDGAR in 2005.

"EDGAR was once state-of-the-art," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. "Moving from a paper-based world into electronic filing was a significant step in the 1980s. But investors today need access to information in real time, and that information can't be static. It has to be interactive." During the...