Bloomberg: Real-Time Pricing for Sovereign Bonds

August 12, 2025

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Eric Isenberg, Head of Enterprise Data Pricing and David Krein, Head of Real-Time Pricing Research at Bloomberg

The DESK sat down with two leaders on Bloomberg’s Pricing team, Head of Enterprise Data Pricing Eric Isenberg and Head of Real-Time Pricing Research David Krein, to discuss a significant expansion of Bloomberg’s IBVAL Front Office pricing solution.

For the first time, IBVAL is delivering pricing across 14 government bond markets in 11 currencies every second. This latest expansion gives traders near-instant visibility into global bond markets, enabling them to spot price discrepancies, adjust risk exposures in real time, and execute trades with higher confidence for improved outcomes.

In this Q&A, Eric and David detail the impact of this expansion and what’s next for Bloomberg in fixed income pricing.

Tell us more about IBVAL and why this latest expansion is significant for bond traders.

Eric Isenberg: As traders evaluate opportunities and manage risk in global government bond markets, there is increasing demand for more real-time pricing insight across the curve.

Bloomberg has a long history of delivering leading pricing solutions to the fixed income markets, and we are continually expanding to meet the needs of bond traders. We launched IBVAL in 2023 to deliver more frequent, intraday pricing data and haven’t stopped innovating since its launch. At the start, IBVAL offered pricing for USD credit securities before expanding to cover all EUR and GBP investment grade and high yield credit bonds the following year.

This has been a landmark year for continued IBVAL expansion. In May, we announced near real-time pricing for emerging market USD and EUR/GBP bonds. And now, we’ve successfully expanded IBVAL to cover 14 government bond markets and 11 currencies. These include USD (US), CAD (Canada), JPY (Japan), AUD (Australia), NZD (New Zealand), EUR (Germany, France, Italy, Spain), GBP (UK), CHF (Switzerland), NOK (Norway), SEK (Sweden), and DKK (Denmark).

More timely valuations across government curves give market participants a powerful tool to evaluate their portfolio and risk in real-time, assess trading opportunities, and ultimately improve execution and post-trade workflows.

What are the challenges of producing an accurate and reliable price as fast as every second for sovereign bonds?

David Krein: One of the biggest challenges in the government bond markets is delivering accurate and consistent global government pricing across a wide range of liquidity profiles. The US market differs greatly from, say, Norway. Within each market, on-the-run benchmark bonds will look dramatically different than off-the-run bonds elsewhere on the curve. Building a model to consistently capture these various scenarios is a critical component of IBVAL.

For example, on-the-run securities in major markets, such as the 2-, 5-, 10- and 30-year bonds issued by the US or German governments, are among the most frequently traded bonds in the world and require significantly more computational power to generate and deliver an updated IBVAL tick every second. We’ve also designed IBVAL to provide the same tick frequency for less liquid government securities, including off-the-run bonds in liquid markets as well as smaller developed markets, which historically have been underserved segments.

What is valuable about IBVAL is its ability to consistently deliver objective and comprehensive pricing across the curve regardless of a bond’s liquidity. This systematic approach reflects our commitment to meeting client needs and the strength of our investments in technology.

How is Bloomberg applying AI to deliver pricing for US treasuries across the liquidity spectrum?

David Krein: IBVAL consumes billions of market data points from a variety of sources to deliver near real-time pricing across the liquidity spectrum. Using machine learning, IBVAL is able to find a specific price – the trade reference price. In other words, we use machine learning to answer the question: If this bond were to trade right now, at what level would it most likely trade? Whether the bond is liquid and a lot of data exists, or the bond is illiquid and there is very little data available, IBVAL was carefully built with machine learning to answer that question with minimum error. Then, to ensure consistency, IBVAL pricing is systematically streamed throughout the day to address outliers, spikes, drifts, and jumps in price, ensuring high-quality results that support real-time trading needs.

When we talk to bond traders, they often say that Bloomberg’s pricing solutions are one of their first stops to inform trading decisions. Tell us more about Bloomberg’s offering, what makes it a powerful solution for traders?

David Krein: What truly differentiates IBVAL comes down to three things: our technology, access to high-quality data, and integration with clients’ workflows. All of these components have been integral to our ability to scale IBVAL for seamless real-time delivery to clients across the globe.

I’ve described our technology and data in building IBVAL, but ultimately, clients will need to plug it into their business and trading workflows. Bond traders can integrate IBVAL into their workflow in several different ways, either through their work on the Bloomberg Terminal or by using our real-time market data feed, B-PIPE, to integrate intraday pricing data across their enterprise. IBVAL is also accessible through Bloomberg AIM, ETOMS, as well as Bloomberg’s trading solutions and automation tools, like Rule Builder (RBLD).

Eric Isenberg: Another important differentiator is the consistency and commitment that we bring when Bloomberg enters a new space. As a team, we deliver a strategic and long-term view on the enhancements and investments we make. Bond traders know they can count on us to remain a reliable pricing partner in new and existing financial markets.

How does this additional expansion factor into your overall pricing strategy?

Eric Isenberg: These expansions are all designed to serve the complex needs of global bond traders across the buy and sell side. Comprehensive, timely, and defensible global treasury curves are foundational to trading across both rates and credit markets and offer the greatest opportunity for us to add value to our clients.

We are strongly committed to growing and iteratively improving our product suite in intraday pricing for front office clients and will continue to expand our offering strategically where we see the greatest opportunity to add value to the global fixed income investment and trading communities.

IBVAL is available on the Bloomberg Terminal by loading a security then selecting IBVL PCS as the preferred pricing source. IBVAL is also available via Bloomberg’s real-time market data feed, B-PIPE, so clients can readily integrate intraday pricing data across their enterprise. To learn more, click here.