Barclays Offers Online Trading to Plan Sponsors
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.
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