Stock-Exchange Veteran Chris Concannon Moves to Bond Platform

A pioneer of electronic stock trading is moving to the bond market.

Chris Concannon is joining bond-trading venue MarketAxess Holdings Inc. as president and chief operating officer, the company said. He comes from Cboe Global Markets Inc., CBOE which operates stock, options and futures exchanges, where he held the same positions.

A spokeswoman for Cboe declined to comment.

An advocate of electronic trading since the 1990s, Mr. Concannon, 51, is making the move in the relatively early days of the corporate bond market’s transition to automation.

While stock trading has become nearly automatic, taking place primarily in central online markets, corporate-bond trading remains a largely manual process. Bond traders still negotiate deals over the phone or via electronic messages.

Yet the market is changing quickly, driven by regulation, upstart platforms and new technology. A recent survey by Greenwich Associates, an industry consulting firm, found that 26% of corporate bond volume was traded electronically in the third quarter of 2018, up from 19% in the first quarter.

“I see the corporate-bond market evolving, and it’s following a pattern I’ve seen before in my career,” Mr. Concannon said in an interview.

A lawyer by training, Mr. Concannon joined Cboe in 2017 after it acquired electronic stock exchange firm Bats Global Markets Inc., where he was chief executive. Mr. Concannon also served as president and COO of Virtu Financial Inc., a high-frequency market-making firm that trades stocks, currencies and other assets.

Mr. Concannon said he expects the move to electronic trading to accelerate as rising interest rates continue to roil the markets. “We’re approaching the end of a 10-year bull market,” he said. “There will be active trading in fixed income while the volatility of the transition occurs.”

About 85% of electronic corporate-bond trading by institutions in the third quarter was on MarketAxess, Greenwich’s survey found.

MAS to double individual limit on Singapore Savings Bonds, allow purchases via SRS funds

THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will double the individual limit for holding Singapore Savings Bonds (SSB) and allow investors to buy the instruments using their Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) funds, the financial sector agency announced on Monday.

The maximum amount of SSB that an individual can hold will be raised to S$200,000 from the current S$100,000, MAS said. Both changes will take effect from Feb 1, 2019.

The SSB programme has garnered about S$3.7 billion of investments from close to 100,000 individual investors since its launch in October 2015, MAS said. During this time, the authority has received requests from the public to allow the purchases of the bonds using SRS funds, which are voluntary retirement savings contributed by Singapore workers above the national CPF scheme.

"Taking into account public feedback, MAS has worked with the banks to enable SRS funds to be invested in SSB. This will expand the range of products available to SRS members and help them save and plan for retirement," MAS said in a press statement.

To apply for SSB using SRS funds, investors may apply through the internet banking portals of their respective SRS operators, which are the local banks – DBS, POSB, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank. As with cash applications, the minimum application amount is S$500, and a S$2 transaction fee deducted from the SRS account for each application.

The new increased individual limit on SSB holdings will apply to SSB purchased with cash and with SRS funds.

MAS will also launch a "My Savings Bonds" portal in March for investors to view their consolidated SSB holdings via the SSB website.