OTC Bulletin Board

The OTC (Over-The-Counter) Bulletin Board or OTCBB is a United States quotation medium operated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for its subscribing members. It is used for many over-the-counter (OTC) securities that are not listed on the NASDAQ or a national . Broker-dealers who subscribe to the system, which is not electronic, can use the OTCBB to enter orders for OTC securities that qualify to be quoted. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), "fraudsters often claim or imply that an OTCBB company is a Nasdaq company to mislead investors into thinking that the company is bigger than it is".

FINRA, an "independent, not-for-profit organization authorized by Congress", runs and provides regulatory services to the OTCBB by "writing and enforcing rules governing the activities of more than 4,100 securities firms with approximately 639,780 brokers". The OTCBB formerly collected 100% of quotes, but that number has declined with the rise of its competitor OTC Markets Group, which uses an electronic quotation system. In September 2009, FINRA announced that it would be selling the OTCBB. OTC Markets Group was the leading contender for purchasing the OTCBB, but terms could not be reached. In September 2010, FINRA announced that it had reached terms for the sale of the OTCBB with Rodman & Renshaw, an investment bank. Along with the sale of the OTCBB and, in an effort to provide uniform regulation to all OTC issues and, subsequently, transparency to the OTC market, FINRA has proposed a "quotation consolidation system". Under the quotation consolidation system, FINRA would require dealers to report all of their quotes to the quotation consolidation system, regardless of the market upon which they were originally quoted. This would enable FINRA to have access to all quotes in OTC issues and regulate the OTC market in its entirety. Pink OTC argues this is anti-competitive and an abuse of FINRA's authority.

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