The Archipelago Exchange has announced plans to launch a bond trading platform in the fourth quarter.

Archipelago Holdings Inc., owner and operator of the Archipelago Exchange, announced that the company intends to file a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a corporate bond trading platform.

This proposed bond trading platform would allow users of ArcaEx to trade certain bonds listed on, or issued by companies listed by U.S. markets and exchanges, through unlisted trading privileges. ArcaEx will initially focus on U.S exchange-listed corporate bonds.

“We believe the current state of bond trading offers ArcaEx the opportunity to bring its unique trading approach to drive new efficiencies to the marketplace,” commented Archipelago president Mike Cormack. “Our entry into bond trading furthers our stated strategy of leveraging technology, connectivity and our solid relationships with our customers to trade multiple products over the ArcaEx platform.”

The Archipelago bond marketplace is expected to offer both limit and reserve orders ranging from at least one lot (US$1000 face value) to a maximum order of 1,000,000 bonds (a US$1 billion face value). Bond orders would match on a price/time priority basis and would initially only interact within ArcaEx’s internal liquidity. ArcaEx also plans on publishing a real time bond data feed.

The bond marketplace’s hours of operation are expected to be 4:00 am ET – 8:00 pm ET. The marketplace is also expected to conduct two daily bond auctions — an opening session auction at 4:00 am ET and core session auction at 9:30 am ET. Pending regulatory approvals, Archipelago has targeted late in the fourth quarter to introduce its bond trading capabilities.