A year ago, Bondscape - the multibank retail bond trading platform - had just launched. It had a great business plan, and everything to prove. A year later, it has gone about the task of proving its worth with gusto.
The number of brokers using the system has increased tenfold. Over 112,000 trades have gone through the system. The market downturn in equities has spurred on Bondscape's growth, as retail investors look for an alternative to equity.
Bondscape enables financial consultants to give their clients an easy window into the bond market. It has three dealers on it - Barclays Capital, HSBC and Winterflood Securities - to give consultants best execution. Importantly for the retail sector, it lets clients buy even tiny amounts of gilts, down into pence.
As many clients might be quite new to the bond market, and may not have a Bloomberg terminal, they could find it difficult to find the information they need. As a solution to this problem, Bondscape provides research and analytics, including historical market data, gross redemption yields and links to prospectus documentation.
It also now lets clients put certain bonds into portfolios, so they can easily check on their performance, as well as view the portfolio through heat-map analysis, to see relative value.