London Stock Exchange (LSE) unveiled its fixed income trading platform this morning, allowing retail investors greater access to the bond market than ever before.

The platform allows investors to see on screen prices and trade in increments as low as £1 for gilts and £1,000 for corporate bonds, in a process similar to share dealing.

Ten corporate bonds were made available today, including securities issued by

- GE Capital
- Enterprise Inns
- GlaxoSmithKline
- Morgan Stanley
- BT
- National Grid

The system is broadly modeled on Borsa Italiana’s MOT market, which witnessed €230 billion of trading in 2009.

It comes as some institutional investors are moving out of corporate bond investments, but this did not affect the overall enthusiasm at today’s launch.

Xavier Rolet, chief executive of London Stock Exchange Group, said that there are plans afoot to further expand the group’s product offering and this latest launch illustrates the LSE’s commitment to these plans.

He explained, ‘We are determined to continue expanding while responding to the needs and demands of our customers.

'There has already been considerable interest in this new platform from issuers, member firms and private investors, and we look forward to further facilitating that growing interest as the market establishes itself over the coming months.’

Paul Killik, senior partner at Killik & Co, said that there has been growing demand from private investors to access the corporate bond market but until now a centralised, transparent order book for trading in individual retail friendly sized bonds has not existed.

He added, ‘We look forward to providing our customers with an entirely new type of access to fixed income markets.’