OpenYield was highlighted in Barnet Sherman’s Forbes article, which explores digital transformation and the key role of ATSs in driving the bond market’s electrification. Read the full article HERE.
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A New Bloom of ATS Entrants
However, it isn’t just regulators and established ATS platforms noting the rise in municipal bond trading volumes. Jonathan Birnbaum founded OpenYield, an automated bond marketplace designed for algorithmic processes. Established in corporates and govies, the firm is expanding into the municipal bond market. Not a muni veteran, Jon combines his fintech experience at several start-ups with his U.S. credit and emerging markets trading experience at Morgan Stanley for a welcome fresh take. Uniting retail brokerages, investment advisors, asset managers, and market makers, OpenYield strives to create for each a readily accessible, navigable, and dynamic liquidity environment.
Jon summarizes OpenYield’s perspective in one word: connection. Designing and applying protocols through a flexible API connection, he sees the opportunity for execution management systems that can aggregate and route orders in the municipal bond market. With a technology enabled process, programmatic rules can be created for portfolio allocation and best execution. What advisor or fund manager wouldn’t want that?
In his big picture view, it’s technology enabling low cost scalability as the key to greater market adoption. Making the municipal bond market more efficient and less costly in turn increases accessibility. That potentially brings new investors to the market—investors who may have previously eschewed it because of the market’s historically cumbersome and archaic structure. With more entrants comes more capital and with that, more data, more liquidity, and better pricing. It’s a grand positive feedback loop.
