Request-for-quote (RFQ) remains the primary go-to protocol across electronic trading venues in corporate bond markets for buy-side traders.
Despite speculation that the electronification of the market would lead to its demise, it has endured. In its results for the first quarter of 2026, Tradeweb reported average daily volume (ADV) for RFQ trades increased over 30% year-on-year, with double-digit growth in both investment-grade and high-yield, while dealer RFQ ADV grew over 40% year-on-year with reported record responder rates in high yield.
Other platforms have also reported significant growth in RFQ trading, albeit across a wide-range of RFQ-based models.
It is reasonable to ask why finding the best price via enquiry, rather than a published consensus price, would retain popularity, given the risks that exist around information leakage and the increased friction of trading by negotiation. The argument that the fixed income markets will become more ‘equity’ like gives us some insight into this.
In the equity market, we see a push away from lit venues with disclosed prices, towards non-disclosed trading models. Low-touch, low-friction trading in the dark requires a benchmark price to support it, either from primary venues or from a central, consolidated tape. In the US credit market TRACE fulfils this function.
Yet the infrequency of trading for most bonds still limits the capacity of a consolidated tape to provide an up-to-the-minute centralised price and consequently the reliability is limited.
Negotiation is still needed to bridge the gap.
Portfolio trading has been the fastest-growing protocol across platforms, with Tradeweb, reporting the in-comp credit portfolio trading ADV increasing 18.1% year-on-year in March 2026, with non-competitive PT up 17.5% and ADV up by event hight proportions on other platforms, albeit from lower bases. Block trading has emerged as a standout growth in e-trading as well, with surging trade sizes across specific segments.
These are all higher touch trading protocols and reflect that need to find a price, due to the absence of live pricing.
The exception to this is automated execution, which is becoming a structurally distinct protocol category in its own right, with record volumes in European credit on some platforms over the past quarter.
Across platforms no single protocol dominates unconditionally, rather, RFQ, portfolio trading, block trading and automation are each capturing distinct client needs and growing simultaneously. This suggests that protocol diversification, not consolidation, is the defining feature of electronic credit market structure today, and that new ways to negotiate a price are inevitable in the absence of higher turnover.
©Markets Media Europe 2025
