Neptune, the Fixed Income network for real-time “axe” indications, today announced the addition of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (“BAML”) to its network. With BAML, Neptune now has 22 banks signed to participate on the network with 19 live.

The Neptune network provides a venue for investors to consume the highest quality bond axes/inventory data from their most trusted Bank counterparts.  This enables institutional investors to be more effective and targeted when looking to execute large size orders in products such as corporate and emerging market bonds.

Nineteen bond dealers are already live on the network, providing axe information in real-time on over 14,500 different securities with over $131 billion in gross notional across 20 different denominations, including $35 billion in US liquidity. This is generated from over 26,500 pre-trade real-time “axe” indications in the network, daily. This strong growth is expected to continue with the 20th and 21st Banks due to go live in mid-Q2, 2017.

“With BAML on board, Neptune’s membership now includes the leading fixed income market makers. This is an important step forward in the development of our open-access, non-discriminatory network and will make these markets more efficient,” said Grant Wilson, CEO of Neptune Networks Ltd.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch will start providing their data to the network later in Q2, 2017.

“Neptune’s membership is already very strong, comprising leading figures from both sell-side and buy-side. The addition of BAML further expands the reach and scope of the Neptune data network both locally, in EMEA, and more broadly in the US region where Neptune has seen significant growth in liquidity this year,” added Wilson.

Neptune is a technology platform that started in 2015 as a project aimed at increasing and improving the quality of information available to corporate bond market participants using standard open source protocols, and thereby strengthening liquidity.

Neptune delivers data using open standard FIX, which means low costs for users connecting to the network but also ensures that the data is easily integrated with the various in-house and third party order management systems (OMS) and execution management systems (EMS) used by asset managers.

Neptune was incorporated as Neptune Networks Ltd in July 2016.