Goldman launches bond trading platform Goldman Sachs has launched its new electronic bond trading platform as part of the investment bank's efforts to restore liquidity in the corporate debt market and keep customers. The new platform, known as GSessions, began trading last week after months of development, according to people familiar with the programme. GSessions offers Goldman clients the ability to buy or sell certain corporate bonds at set times of the day at a potentially lower cost than traditional "voice trading" over the phone with brokers at the banks. Asset managers have complained that liquidity in the $8tn corporate bond market has dried up as banks retreat from their traditional bond-dealing roles because of new regulations that makes it more expensive for them to hold the debt. That, and pressure to reduce costs, has helped spur banks including Goldman and UBS to create new electronic bond trading platforms. "Traditionally in the credit markets there haven't been many electronic trading systems," said a person who helped develop the Goldman platform. But we thought the time was right especially with some of the regulatory changes. This is really a response to clients saying they wanted more liquidity. But Goldman's new bond trading platform differs with the Price Improvement Network created by UBS and the Aladdin Trading Network proposed by BlackRock, the world" biggest asset manager. These platforms mainly aim to strip out the middleman role played by banks in the market. GSessions allows clients to buy or sell bonds in set trading sessions. The bonds involved in the sessions are selected by the bank and advertised to clients in advance of trading. The sessions begin with a five-minute order collection process, that assembles buying and selling interest from customers. Goldman stands in between the trades and guarantees a certain amount of minimum liquidity. The aim was to create "flashpoints of liquidity" in the market, one Goldman insider said. The bank has held four trading sessions so far, two for investment-grade bonds and two for high-yield. So far there have been 39 customer trades, worth about $150m from 33 client accounts, the insider said. The bank has guaranteed $50m worth of investment grade debt and between $25m to $50m of high-yield bonds per session. If Goldman is unable to completely match the "buy" and "sell" orders in a particular trading session, the residual positions are sent to the bank's bond traders to be managed. Goldman clients who use the platform are able to view the "order imbalance" for certain sessions. The bank is still in talks with customers and could yet tweak the platform. "We fully expect this to be an iterative process," said one person close to GSessions. We would expect that a year from now this might be quite different.