This article was originally published in Benzinga. To read the full piece, click HERE
While higher interest rates make bonds appealing, navigating the buying process may be challenging, especially for inexperienced retail investors.
OpenYield emerges as a better way to capitalize on high interest rates. Founded by CEO Jonathan Birnbaum and CTO Hilton Lipschitz, this fixed-income trading platform caters to the resurgent interest in bond investments. It uses recent market structure innovations, including algorithm-enhancing liquidity, to facilitate easier access and trading.
“The existing product experiences leave much to be desired because of underinvestment in the past decade,” Birnbaum shared. “We’ve built a modern marketplace that provides an equity-like trading experience for bonds. We source liquidity directly from algorithms, with 100% live, firm, and instant execution with no minimums, bundled connectivity, and analytics.”
Story Behind Thesis: Before OpenYield, the MIT alumnus began his career at Morgan Stanley as a sell-side fixed-income trader and electronic trading product developer. Birnbaum later advanced to chief operating officer and left for the buy-side, moving to Bridgewater Associates to oversee their fixed-income execution.
Ultimately, these experiences fueled Birnbaum’s venture into fintech, including roles at SoFi and Domain Money before OpenYield.
“OpenYield combines all my perspectives from the sell-side, buy-side, and retail brokerage. I thought there was a compelling opportunity to launch a new bond marketplace focused on retail distribution.”
