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One of the most frustrating parts of trading bonds in Asia today is that prior to placing a trade, buyers and sellers must spend hours phoning dealers to get quotes and aggregating market research. In July 2000, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup joined forces with Bridge e-Markets to form BondsinAsia (BIA), which aimed at facilitating the trading of Asian fixed-income securities. Officially launched in January 2002, BIA rolled out an electronic trading system in Hong Kong and Singapore. The system replaced paper and telephone information gathering by giving access to on-line price and research information to market participants on an instantaneous, 24/7 basis. As BIA was preparing to expand its portal to other markets, a number of questions remained on many industry players'' minds. How would the legal, regulatory and technical issues affect BIA''s cross-market franchise model? The teaching note was written by AF Farhoomand, and M Ho.