Bondscape, the online bond trading platform for retail private clients developed by Barclays Capital and Winterflood Securities, has extended its product coverage and introduced a new online research tool.
The online trading platform will now include 50 European government bonds and over 70 euro-denominated corporate bonds (including names such as BMW, KfW, Siemens and Vivendi) with continuous live two-way prices and no minimum dealing size. With these additions, Bondscape now provides an execution capability in over 350 sterling and euro-denominated corporate bonds, UK gilts, index-linked and European government bonds, says the company.
In addition, Bondscape has partnered with europrospectus.com to offer registered users online access to prospectus information for all bonds covered by Bondscape. Using the europrospectus.net database service investors will be able to text, field and clause search across these documents, using more than 50 search fields to refine the results.
Zak de Mariveles, associate director at Barclays Capital, comments: "We are committed to widening access to the bond markets and believe that the enhancements to Bondscape announced today further improve transparency and choice for the private client stockbrokers and professional investment advisers buying bonds on behalf of retail investors."
The upgrade comes as Barclays confirms plans to axe 10% of the 1000 jobs in its private banking unit in light of adverse market conditions.
"The current climate in the stock market means we need to review the positioning" Barclays spokesman Alan White told Dow-Jones.
White said the cuts will include some lay-offs, but many will come through natural wasteage and a freeze in recruitment.
The UK bank recently closed down its onine procurement operation, Barclays B2B, after deciding that the significant ongoing investment in the business would generate better returns elsewhere.