New York institutional research and execution firm Wall Street Access has launched an electronic trading platform offering auto-executions for several major fixed-income securities and hired a veteran bond trader to lead it. Rich Lee, who joins Wall Street Access from Mellon Securities, where he served as managing director of fixed-income trading and sales operation, will run the effort.

The new system allows registered representatives and traders to search, view and execute trades on U.S. Treasuries, agency securities and corporate bonds, and offers trading ideas, straight-through processing and portfolio matching.

“Our institutional clients are highly sophisticated and needed a better way to trade fixed-income securities,” Wall Street Access CEO Denis Kelleher said. “We believe our new platform is the premier fixed-income trading platform in the marketplace.”