Broker clash: To OTC or not to OTC?

The approval by the Central Depositary’s Board of Directors of OTC transactions has generated strong reactions among brokers, who split into two camps, some supporting the idea and others rejecting it.

The brokers of large banks on the market, including foreign investment funds among their clients, maintain the OTC market is necessary as it would allow them to offset certain flaws of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, such as the absence of global accounts.
The characteristics of OTC transactions are making some brokers worry, who say large investors will be tempted to trade on the OTC and shun the Stock Exchange, which would determine an even deeper liquidity decline.
Stere Farmache, BSE chairman, maintains the need of conducting research before launching OTC transactions and of setting some clear operating rules. “I believe such a decision needs to be well founded and needs the approval of CNVM, since it entails the opening of a new market,” Farmache specified.
CNVM (National Securities Commission) representatives say, though, that current regulations include stipulations regulating OTC transactions, and therefore the Commission’s approval is no longer necessary.