In an exclusive interview to The Financial Express, Managing Director of OTCEI, Praveen Mohnot said a high power committee will be constituted in consultation with the Securities And Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to review the existing norms. Since market making norms of the OTCEI are not investor friendly, a host of merchant bankers approached the exchange and suggested to do away with these norms. Under the market making norms, merchant bankers have to give "buy and sell" quotes for 18 months after the scrip is listed which proved a non starter. Mohnot pointed out "many new concepts like safety-net and due diligence are coming up to protect investors' interest which are more favourable to small companies and investors."

There are large number of good companies in the field of IT, Media, Entertainment, Pharma etc. which are listed on the regional exchanges. It is proposed to provide a national platform to such companies by attracting them for parallel listing on OTCEI. Such listing would be beneficial for both the investors as well as the companies. Mohnot added that OTCEI offers various other new business opportunities like listing and trading privately placed debt and trading in Venture Fund financed unlisted companies. These facilities will be in line with SEBI requirements. OTCEI is the third national stock exchange which can provide such facilities because it has an all India network of connectivity. OTCEI has also approached mutual funds regarding "Inter-Scheme Transfer" of securities by them subject to SEBI approvals. It proposed to provide its platform for such transfer which will create transparency in transactions. If such a scheme is approved by SEBI exclusively for OTCEI, it would generate large trading volumes onthe permitted segment of OTCEI.

To make the OTCEI trading platform attractive for members, the exchange has already taken two decisions. From August 18, the weekly settlement period has changed from Saturday-to-Friday to Friday-to Thursday. Secondly, the trading time has been increased by half hour by extending the closing time from 4:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Both these measures are expected to open up more arbitrage opportunities and would fetch more business for the exchange. OTCEI's subsidiary OTCEI Securities Limited (OSL) has taken up the membership of the National Stock Exchange and started the operation some time back.

According to Mohnot, OTCEI's members can become OSL sub-broker in order totrde on NSE. The project has been very enthusiastically and positively received by the market. The daily trading volume on this segment has reached to Rs 3 crore. Not only this, during a short span of one month the exchange has received 25 applications for taking up the sub-brokership of OSL. These applications are in the process of being cleared by the regulator.