Fixed income’s online shine

Over the course of the last decade, electronics have transformed the global markets: virtually all the world’s exchanges are electronic. Access to liquidity and the ability to execute in nanoseconds is routine. The electronic revolution in securities issues has led to greater efficiency, liquidity, price discovery, quicker execution, and productivity for all players: broker-dealers, institutions, and individual investors. Notably absent from participation in this transformation has been the fixed income market, but that is changing. Driven by regulation, technology, and the need to compete, fixed income markets are catching up – if not soon to surpassing – the electronic capability seen in equities and purely fixed income asset classes. The regulatory requirements mandated both in the Basel and Dodd-Frank regimes that lay out rules for the financial industry necessitate greater connectivity, transparency and access among fixed income players. Owing to regulation, upcoming trends will include a move from proprietary to agency-based