Boston-based Fidelity today announced it is updating "Bond Beacon," a platform designed to help wealth managers with fixed-income investing. The changes are meant to simplify the process for accessing and trading bonds.
The platform aims to give users greater liquidity with help from Fidelity Capital Markets, the firm's institutional trading arm, which offers expanded electronic market connectivity. Fidelity said Bond Beacon will also offer updated analytics, including pre-trade, at-trade and post-trade data; expanded reporting for intermediaries and their clients; and real-time fixed-income position and account information.
Bond Beacon was launched in August 2020 and rolled out to a subset of Fidelity Institutional clients. This year the platform is being rolled out to all of Fidelity’s advisor segments.
Fidelity research has found that more than one-third of advisors would find it easier to invest in individual bonds for their clients if they had a simpler process to access and trade fixed-income securities.
Bond Beacon is designed to help address advisors’ demand by using real-time data and analytics to trade against live markets, providing visibility into fixed-income markets and reducing the time needed for transactions.