RIA custodian Altruist has launched fully digital fixed income trading for advisors.
Calling it the Fixed Income Mall, Altruist partnered with startup Moment as its infrastructure partner.
Among the features of the new trading center is what Altruist calls a modern controller, increased data transparency and a “click to trade” functionality built directly into Altruist's platform.
Advisors can browse bond inventory, see real-time prices and filter through US Treasuries, corporate and municipal bonds, certificates of deposit and government agency securities within the screen. And it provides reference data, including historical yield, maturity and price.
According to Altruist, the click-to-trade feature is powered by Moment, allows users to quickly create orders and provides automated smart order routing, all within the Altruist platform.
Moment raised $20 million in a Series A funding round a year agoled by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Venrock, Contary, Neo and Henry R. Kravis.
Moment also announced a partnership with rival Altruist Apex Fintech Solutions last year.
Moment noted in its blog post announcing the funding increase that despite fixed income being the world's most traded asset class (more than three times the size of global equities, according to the firm), in 2013, only 8% of investment-grade corporate bond volume was traded electronically, and it had increased by 2022 to 45%.
“Technology has driven the financial advice industry forward, but fixed income trading has lagged behind,” said Harpreet Ahluwalia, chief product officer at Altruist, in the company's announcement. “When you make it easier for advisors to navigate the bond market, clients benefit from more predictable cash flows and deeper portfolio customization.”
Altruist raised a $169 million Series E round in Mayvaluing the firm at $1.5 billion.
Also in May, Altruist said it worked with 3,700 advisers and 2,500 RIA firms on its platform, making it the third-largest custodian behind Schwab and Fidelity by number of RIA client firms, but not by from assets under management, which it does not. share or publish.