To streamline licensing for brokers who had to be approved by both the NASD and the states where they wanted to do business, NASAA and the NASD set up a computer file-- known as the Central Registration Depository-- for brokers'records.
32.
All registered brokers doing business in the U . S . security markets are listed in the Central Registration Depository of the NASD and the state regulators, which also includes the records of any disciplinary actions or complaints against them.
33.
The campaign isn't immediately apparent : Even as the industry is quietly pushing the idea of denying public access to information about pending actions against brokers, it is trumpeting proposed improvements in the Central Registration Depository ( CRD ) databank that tracks brokers.
34.
Information on brokers is reported to a " central registration depository " of the National Association of Securities Dealers, known as the CRD . That information is then available to all states, which can use it to decide whether to license a broker.
35.
In January 1995, the National Association of Securities Dealers began to delete records of complaints if they were withdrawn by customers-- a reputational cleanup that didn't sit well with the more consumer-minded state securities regulators who share the Central Registration Depository of broker records with the NASD.
36.
After more than a year of contentious negotiations, the National Association of Securities Dealers and the North American Securities Administrators Association have wrapped up most details of a deal to revamp the Central Registration Depository, the computer system that holds the disciplinary and complaint records of the nation's stock brokers.
37.
Another subcommittee witness, G . Philip Rutledge, deputy chief counsel of the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, said : " One of the most important actions which can be taken now to help protect investors from securities fraud on the Internet is making the information maintained in the central registration depository operated by the National Association of Securities Dealers, accessible to public investors via a Web site ."
