BlackRock also has put together special teams to focus on ETF sales to specific institutional client segments, including asset managers, hedge funds and insurance companies.
At State Street's asset management arm, State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), executives are seeing big buys of bond ETFs from some institutional managers.
"We've had $500 million to $1 billion investments in bond ETFs" from a single institutional investor, said State Street's Brian Kinney, who oversees ETF portfolio managers in Boston, London, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. "Pensions and endowments and other asset managers are very sensitive to transaction costs. They've come to see ETFs as a viable option to make sector bets."