All-To-All And Anonymous RFQ

A traditional request-for-quote (RFQ) sends a price inquiry to a handful of dealer banks, who respond with quotes and compete for the trade; only dealers can quote, and everyone else is a client. All-to-all RFQ opens that same request up to any participant on the platform — other buy-side firms, hedge funds, even the requester's usual competitors — so a broader pool of potential counterparties can respond, not just the traditional dealer desks.

This matters most in markets like corporate bonds, where a given bond may trade only a few times a week and dealers may not want to hold inventory in it; a buy-side firm on the other side of the trade that happens to want the opposite position can fill the order directly, cutting out the dealer's spread entirely. Anonymity is usually layered on top: the platform hides which specific firm sent the request or which firm is responding until a trade is agreed, so a large asset manager can seek a price without signalling its identity (and therefore its likely size or motive) to the market.

The tradeoff is that all-to-all trading works best in names with enough natural two-way interest to find a match; for a bond nobody else wants to trade that day, a dealer's willingness to warehouse the position is still often needed.