May 27, 2026 — Over 80% of buy-side fixed-income professionals use or expect to use transaction cost analysis (TCA), to help benchmark the costs of individual trades and demonstrate best execution.
TCA tools for fixed-income investing and trading have come a long way in the past decade, following the progress of a market that has transitioned from primarily voice-based transactions to electronic and digitized trading.
Despite this progress, the industry still lacks a transparent and public “best price” in most bond markets, and practitioners using TCA metrics are still tasked to rely on assumptions that are part art and part science to generate useful data.
However, confidence in TCA technology is growing among fixed-income traders as barriers to adoption fall. According to new data from Crisil Coalition Greenwich, the share of buy-side traders reporting that they lack the tools or data required for TCA dropped by half last year, and the share of traders saying they don’t see the need to employ TCA also declined.
Buoyed by that momentum, the share of traders planning to implement a TCA solution has more than doubled, jumping from 11% in 2025 to 23% in 2026.
“TCA is rapidly moving from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’ solution in the fixed-income market,” says Audrey Costabile, Senior Analyst in Market Structure & Technology at Crisil Coalition Greenwich and author of Fixed-income TCA adoption is set for growth as future intent surges.
A Hybrid Approach to TCA
Most firms that employ TCA in fixed income (84%) rely on third-party solutions. Bloomberg's BTCA, which is employed by 29% of traders, is the most widely used external tool, with trading venues like Tradeweb (14%) and MarketAxess (11%) also holding significant shares.
“In addition, more than 40% of firms use internally built TCA tools that can provide enhanced flexibility,” says Audrey Costabile.
When choosing an external TCA provider, firms are primarily seeking reliability, which is cited as a key selection criterion by 64% of traders, and cost, which is cited by 42%. These factors outrank other considerations like asset class coverage (22%) and unique reporting capabilities (11%).
Fixed-income TCA adoption is set for growth as future intent surges presents the results of a study for which the firm interviewed buy-side traders and portfolio managers in the United States about TCA in fixed income. The report documents current usage and growth rates, identifies the most commonly used TCA tools and providers, and analyzes the most important things firms are looking for when selecting TCA systems and vendors.