Barclays Offers Online Trading to Plan Sponsors

October 5, 2000 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Plan sponsors may soon get a break in fees and be able to conduct their trades online, courtesy of an expanded pension trading system from Barclays Global Investors.

Barclays is expanding their ClientConnect 2000 platform to offer online trading of funds for investors, targeting those with anywhere from $25 million to $350 million in assets.

The trading features will be added to the new Web site (http://clientconnect.barclaysglobal.com) in the fourth quarter. The service already provides trust statements and reports on the stock and bond funds Barclays offers to tax-exempt fund sponsors.

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The product is the most recent foray “downmarket” for Barclays, which has traditionally focused on large institutional investors. In fact, Barclays estimates it missed out on some $1.5 billion in asset-management business over the past two years because it lacked a formalized approach to the smaller market, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Barclays offers these clients 19 funds for investment, mostly index funds – a Barclays specialty. Fees range from 0.05% for the S&P Index Fund to 0.50% for the U.S. Tactical Asset Allocation Fund.

– Nevin Adams                                          editors@plansponsor.com

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