The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority was accused of hiding red flags about brokers from its BrokerCheck database by the Public Investors Arbitration Association Thursday.

In a report, the PIABA said there is a host of damaging information about many current and former brokers in the Finra and North American Securities Administrators Association co-owned Central Registration Depository that Finra fails to incorporate into BrokerCheck.

These details are among the information that CRD has that BrokerCheck does not:

•    The reasons a broker-dealer fired a broker for the termination and other commentary on the termination.

•    Information about whether a broker was ever under internal review “for fraud or wrongful taking of property, or violating investment-related statutes, regulations, rules or industry standards of conduct.”

•    Broker personal bankruptcies.

•    Federal tax lien over $100,000 filed against a broker.
 
•    Information about failed broker exams, exam scores how many times a broker may have failed before finally passing. State reports do include this more detailed information.
 
The arbitrators group said Finra wrongly has contended it is barred by law from incorporating CRD into BrokerCheck.

The public registration and updated information all brokerages submit to CRD about their current and past brokers is available to investors by calling or visiting any state securities office, but all of the information is not accessible online.

Every Finra registered brokers has to be registered with at least one state. But all state registered brokers do not have to be registered with Finra. The rare exceptions are for brokers who specialize in one type of securities in one state such as for oil and gas.

BrokerCheck makes available information to the public on 1.3 million current and former Finra-registered brokers and 17,400 current and former Finra-registered brokerage firms.