Bond Scanner: How Interactive Brokers' Latest Tool Makes Fixed Income Trading Cheaper and Clearer

Finding the right bond at a fair price has always been frustrating. You’re stuck comparing spreads across dealers, wondering if you’re getting price-gouged, and dealing with hidden markups nobody talks about. Interactive Brokers just rolled out a Bond Scanner that addresses exactly this problem.

The Core Problem It Solves

Most bond traders face a dirty secret: non-transparent pricing and fat hidden markups are standard practice. Some brokers layer on massive margins without telling you. Interactive Brokers is taking a different approach—their Bond Scanner lets you compare real-time bond prices from multiple electronic venues and dealers in one place, stripping away the opacity.

What You Actually Get with This Tool

The Bond Scanner gives fixed income investors access to a massive universe of securities: over 38,000 global corporate bonds, 851,000 municipal securities, 1,900 non-US sovereign bonds, plus 33,000 CDs and government securities. You can filter by:

• Maturity date ranges to target specific periods
• Industry sectors (for corporates) or state (for municipals)
• Yield-to-worst thresholds (minimum and maximum)
• Credit ratings via Moody’s and S&P ratings
• Investment grade vs. high-yield classifications
• Bond type (corporate, treasury, municipal, CD) with a single click

The platform connects to major trading venues including BondDesk, Knight BondPoint, MuniCenter, NYSE BONDS, and Tradeweb through Interactive Brokers’ Trader Workstation, so you’re seeing prices from multiple sources simultaneously.

The Pricing Advantage—This Is the Real Story

Here’s where Interactive Brokers separates itself. Their commission structure is genuinely transparent and dirt cheap:

For corporate bonds: 10 basis points on the first $10,000 face value (minimum $1), then 2.5 basis points on anything above that. For someone buying $20,000 across 20 bonds? That’s $12.50 total in commissions. No hidden markups. No spread inflation.

For municipal bonds: 5 basis points on the first $10,000 face value (minimum $1), then 1.25 basis points on additional value. That same $20,000 across 20 bonds costs just $6.25 in fees.

By contrast, many firms charge “large, hidden markups” that dwarf these numbers. Interactive Brokers’ philosophy is ultra-low, visible fees instead.

The Liquidity Angle Nobody Mentions

Here’s another edge: IBKR clients can post their own pending orders into the bond market, essentially becoming liquidity providers. That doesn’t just improve their own fills—it tightens pricing for everyone else on the platform.

The Strategic Use Case

The “IBKR Bond Challenge” is worth noting. Interactive Brokers is basically saying: take a bond you currently own, scan it on their platform, check the yield available there, then ask your current broker what they’d charge you for the same trade. Most people will discover they’re overpaying by a significant margin.

Bottom Line

If you’re a serious fixed income trader tired of black-box pricing and hidden fees, the Bond Scanner removes a major friction point. You can search transparently, see competitive pricing, and execute at commissions that are genuinely among the lowest available. The tool doesn’t replace broker expertise, but it absolutely levels the information asymmetry that’s historically favored the houses over individual investors.