A new system for trading Treasury bonds could reduce reliance on banks and may help avert future market meltdowns, according to asset managers and experts.
Efforts to improve the structure of the $22tn Treasury market have been accelerated since March 2020, when trading seized up at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic — forcing the US Federal Reserve to step in to enable transactions to continue. And one of the suggestions under consideration by regulators is “all-to-all” trading — a system that would make the bond market look much more like the stock market.
Currently, banks act as intermediaries in many Treasury bond transactions. But an all-to-all trading system would allow traders to transact directly with one another.