Bloomberg Expands D&I Dealer Initiative

Originally published on bloomberg.com

Bloomberg today announced that it has introduced a solution for US Treasuries that enables diverse broker-dealers to provide their clients liquidity using Bloomberg’s technology. The offering adds new minority-owned broker-dealers for US Treasuries, including CastleOak Securities, Mischler Financial Group and Tigress Financial, with additional firms soon to be on-boarded and integrated.

The Treasury offering builds on Bloomberg’s existing D&I Dealer program, which was introduced in 2017 with CastleOak Securities, a leading boutique investment bank. Bloomberg supported the launch of DirectPool, CastleOak’s platform for US corporate bond (both investment grade and high yield) electronic trading, providing all-to-all services for clients.

The offering, which was recently expanded to include US Treasuries, is used by many of the nation’s largest investment managers and bond dealers and provides a reliable pool of liquidity. Through the offering, diverse broker-dealers will be on-boarded to Bloomberg’s electronic trading solution to serve as liquidity providers for US Treasuries. The diverse broker-dealers can then engage traditional liquidity providers to make markets for incoming client RFQs. As a result, a client can easily include a diverse broker-dealer in an RFQ, which is routed to one or more traditional liquidity providers, and delivers pricing back to the client that initiated the RFQ. The offering delivers a seamless process that expands the liquidity pool while supporting minority-owned broker-dealers.

“We approached Bloomberg in 2016 about an innovative idea using Bloomberg BOLT that would not only help us provide liquidity to our clients, but also level the playing field. The combination of Bloomberg’s technology prowess with our trading capabilities has resulted in a lower cost alternative for clients while still fulfilling best execution requirements,” said David R. Jones, CEO of CastleOak Securities.

“Our partnership with Bloomberg has helped us build our fixed income trading business , which in turn has meant measurable revenue growth for CastleOak. DirectPool’s trading volumes continue to grow year over year; the marketplace has realized that this is not only an efficient way to trade, but also a transparent way for clients to achieve their D&I goals. We recently expanded our relationship to include US Treasury electronic trading capabilities and continue to work with Bloomberg to develop new solutions for our clients.”

“The US Treasury white label solution enables us to provide liquidity to buy-side firms to help them with their best execution requirements, while concurrently helping them expand their ESG impact by working with diverse broker-dealers,” said Michael Lindley, Head of Fixed Income Trading at Tigress Financial Partners. “The launch of this solution was made possible by Bloomberg’s commitment to the project, and the resources it provided to get it done. The white label offering enables us to provide clients a service that meaningfully adds value to their business and is part of a seamless workflow. The Bloomberg team have prioritized the democratization of their offerings and have been great partners throughout this process. We look forward to continuing to grow our relationship in the future.”

“Being a part of this Bloomberg initiative is exciting for Mischler Financial Group. It allows us to better support our trading partners by delivering a best in class offering to clients who rely on us to help meet their best execution needs in addition to their diversity goals and mandates,” said Glen Capelo, Head of Rates at Mischler Financial Group. “We’ve already seen firms over 10 trillion in AUM collectively signed up through the US Treasury white label initiative and look forward to what’s ahead. We are extremely excited to be at the forefront of the e-trading revolution in the diversity broker-dealer space, and this offering gives us the ability to be more competitive. It’s crucial to have active robust partners like Bloomberg, who share our ambition to excel and our vision of creating a comprehensive solution for the everyday transaction requirements of our clients.”

“We’re excited and proud to work with such an impressive group of firms as we continue to build our D&I initiative,” said Derek Kleinbauer, Global Head, Fixed Income & Equity E-Trading at Bloomberg. “We remain committed to continually supporting diverse broker-dealers, and the US Treasury solution is a perfect example of innovation and partnership coming together to deliver an efficient and effective offering.”

Bloomberg Electronic Trading Solutions (ETS) are used by leading financial institutions to trade efficiently in over 175 markets around the world. More than 9000 client firms use Bloomberg ETS to access industry-leading depth and breadth of liquidity across asset classes from over 1,500 dealers globally. Bloomberg ETS provides market participants with comprehensive solutions across the trading lifecycle, including robust price transparency, analytics, automation and execution, powered by Bloomberg’s high-quality, multi-asset class data and tools.

About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

Bloomberg Press Contacts:
Europe – Anna Schoeffler, aschoeffler1@bloomberg.net, +33 6 75 54 70 92
US – Gauri Andriks, gandriks@bloomberg.net, +1 (212) 617-6361