UBS and HSBC Robots Push into Bond Sales

UBS Group AG and HSBC Holdings Plc are bringing robots into bond sales, a corner of banking still considered by many to be off-limits to the onward march of automation according to a story in Bloomberg news. UBS has created a machine-learning algorithm that shows its salespeople the most likely counterparty to buy or sell a bond. HSBC is developing a bot that will send asset managers suggestions for bond transactions tailored to their existing trading patterns. The Swiss bank started rolling out the tool, known as Client Scout, in May after testing it earlier in the year. It sends an alert to the bank’s salespeople informing them UBS has a certain position and suggesting the most-likely candidates for the trade, ranked by percentage probability of a match. HSBC’s assistant, which doesn’t yet have a name, will build on an existing bot that HSBC’s salespeople started using in January to ensure they are up-to-date on the bank’s biggest events and best-read research. The tool monitors data on what research clients read and what events they attend. The new system can also compile research and trading ideas for clients, giving staff more time to work on transactions.