Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced record trading volumes for corporate and municipal bonds on its ICE Bonds electronic execution platforms during the first half of 2025.
Corporate bond trading reached a notional volume of $120 billion in the first half of 2025, marking a 20% increase from the first half of 2024. Concurrently, municipal bond trading achieved a record notional volume of $109 billion in the first half of 2025, a 35% rise compared to the same period in 2024.
Peter Borstelmann, President of ICE Bonds, noted that the strong activity signifies the fourth consecutive year of volume increases across their corporate and municipal bond markets. He attributed this growth to the expansion of platform functionality and the development of their institutional and wealth management customer network over recent years.
ICE Bonds also recently processed its first spread-based click-to-trade order. This protocol integrates spread-based pricing, typically used by institutional investors, with the click-to-trade execution common among retail investors and wealth managers. This offers market participants the risk management advantages of quotes priced at a spread to Treasuries, combined with the accessibility of click-to-trade. It also facilitates efficient access to the increasing volume of smaller-sized trades observed in the fixed income market.
The platform supports various trading protocols, including click-to-trade, sweeps, auctions, and Request for Quote (RFQ), complemented by a wide range of fixed income data. ICE Bonds recently introduced a new RFQ protocol for Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS), which operates within ICE TMC’s anonymous trading pool, alongside the existing MBS Click-to-Trade marketplace. ICE’s evaluated pricing and analytics power these protocols, providing transparency and support for pre-trade, trade, and post-trade workflows.
Focused on execution efficiency, ICE Bonds enables both anonymous and disclosed counterparty interactions, handling trades from odd-lots to blocks for Corporates, Municipals, Agencies, Treasuries, and Certificates of Deposit.
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) is a Fortune 500 company that provides financial technology and data services across major asset classes. Its offerings include exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange, clearing houses, fixed income and data services, and solutions like ICE Mortgage Technology.
