OPRA defines the term "Vendor" to mean an entity that has the contractual right to retransmit options information "externally," i.e., to persons outside its own organization. Any external retransmission of options information by an entity is sufficient to cause the entity to be a Vendor, including provision of quotes on an inquiry/response basis or a dynamically updated basis, or providing a "snapshot" quote to a customer's computer prior to executing the customer's electronic order.

Each Vendor must enter into a Vendor Agreement with OPRA. In addition, each Vendor must provide OPRA with an Exhibit A describing the options information service that the Vendor will provide. The Vendor Agreement describes the rights of the Vendor to receive information and redistribute it to its customers (e.g., broker-dealers, institutional investors, and individual investors). Most OPRA Vendors are engaged in the business of disseminating market information from a variety of securities markets (stock exchanges) and commodity futures markets, and many disseminate market information from markets in other countries as well as U.S. markets.

A Vendor must agree to a Vendor Agreement with OPRA with an Exhibit A regardless of whether the Vendor intends to redistribute options information on a "current" or a "delayed" basis. (OPRA defines the term "current" to mean that information relates to transactions completed within the immediately preceding 15 minutes, and "delayed" to mean information that is no longer current.) However, OPRA does not charge usage-based or device-based fees for the use of delayed data.

Each Vendor is responsible for securing the agreement of each Nonprofessional Subscriber to whom the Vendor wishes to provide current options information to OPRA's terms and conditions prior to providing the Nonprofessional Subscriber with access to the information. OPRA has a form of "Subscriber Agreement" in both "hard-copy" (paper-based) form and electronic ("click-on") form that Vendors may use for this purpose. Alternately, OPRA will permit a Vendor to integrate OPRA's terms conditions into the Vendor's own form of hard-copy or electronic agreement, subject to OPRA's approval of the form. The way in which a Vendor will obtain the assent of its Nonprofessional Subscriber to OPRA's terms and conditions must be described in the Vendor's Exhibit A.

As described elsewhere on this website, a Professional Subscriber may also contract with a Vendor to receive options information. A Vendor is responsible, before providing current options information to a Professional Subscriber, either to verify that the Professional Subscriber has signed a Professional Subscriber Agreement directly with OPRA or to secure the agreement with the Professional Subscriber to OPRA's terms and conditions. If the Vendor is entering into the agreement with the Professional Subscriber, the range of alternative ways of doing so that is available for Nonprofessional Subscribers is also available for Professional Subscribers. As with Nonprofessional Subscribers, the Vendor must describe the way in which it will obtain the assent of Professional Subscribers in its Exhibit A.

OPRA charges each Vendor a "Redistribution Fee" (see the OPRA Fee Schedule which is incorporated into the Vendor Agreement as Attachment A). The Redistribution Fee is lower for an Internet based "query only" Vendor service.

A Vendor may retransmit or redistribute options information on a selective or continuous basis. However, under the terms of the Vendor Agreement Vendors are not permitted to exclude information or otherwise discriminate on the basis of the market in which a transaction took place or a quotation was entered. Accordingly, if a Vendor includes option information from the market of one Participant Exchange in respect of a series of options, the Vendor must also include comparable information in respect of that same series form every other Participant Exchange's market whose information is disseminated by OPRA.