BondDesk rolls out bond-trading platform for advisers

BondDesk, the 800-pound gorilla of bond-trading technology and bond liquidity inventory, today officially announced the launch of BondWorks, its new fixed-income wealth management platform. That system already has replaced the legacy workstation platform at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC and is actively being used by that firm's 750 financial advisers. BondWorks is also currently in production use with another 20,000 advisers at other firms. BondDesk has roughly 100,000 advisory customers. The platform will be rolled out over coming months to the firm's largest clients. Alois Pirker, research director at Aite Group LLC, said that while he is not sure that this will shake up the normally staid world of bonds, it could only help BondDesk to stay on top of its niche. “BondDesk is clearly the leader in the space, and if you don't have an inventory yourself — like a Merrill Lynch, for example — you turn to your clearing or custodian firm, and that is where their offering is found,” he said. The system was designed with adviser work flow in mind. BondWorks product manager Kamaryn Tanner this week provided a lengthy demonstration of the platform to InvestmentNews. She said the platform has been under development for three years. “We wanted to facilitate work flows for advisers, not just the buying and selling of bonds,” she said. “Frankly, many financial advisers are very busy, and not living their entire day inside our platform, so they need something that is highly intuitive, with as many timesaving features as can be provided,” Ms. Tanner added. Improved search features, and advanced alerting and monitoring tools, are some of the many features that have been added or fundamentally rebuilt. Greg Stockett, BondDesk's acting chief executive, noted in a statement that bonds “have historically lagged behind other markets such as equities and even foreign exchange when it comes to technology and decision support tools.”