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Buy vs. Build: The Smarter Choice for Municipal Bond Technology

By Matthew Gerstenfeld
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For large broker-dealers, banks, and MA’s, the instinct to build proprietary technology runs deep. With significant resources and in-house development teams, creating an internal system for municipal bond formation might seem like the right move.

But is it?

Building a platform from scratch — or even maintaining and upgrading an existing one — comes with serious challenges. Time, cost, integration, and client collaboration all need to be considered. And more often than not, the firms that choose to build end up with systems that are costly to maintain, slow to adapt, and disconnected from external partners.

Here’s why buying a purpose-built solution is the smarter, more strategic choice.

1. Development Takes Years — And the Market Won’t Wait

Building an internal platform isn’t just about coding. It means mapping out every stakeholder’s workflow, ensuring regulatory compliance, integrating with third-party platforms, and securing buy-in across teams. This process can take years.

Meanwhile, the market continues to evolve. By the time an internal system is fully operational, it may already be lagging behind industry best practices and new regulatory requirements.

2. Cost Isn’t Just About Development — It’s About Maintenance

The initial cost of development is just the beginning. Maintaining and upgrading an internal system requires continuous investment in engineering, compliance updates, and user support. And if the system isn’t keeping pace with external changes, firms risk additional spending on workarounds or eventual overhauls.

A buy solution spreads these costs across multiple firms, meaning ongoing improvements and updates happen without the burden of internal maintenance.

3. Internal Systems Are Often Internal-Only

One of the biggest limitations of homegrown platforms is that they typically serve only the firm that built them. But municipal bond formation is a collaborative process that involves external issuers, advisors, and other stakeholders. If an internal system doesn’t seamlessly interface with external partners, firms are left relying on email, spreadsheets, and disconnected workflows — creating inefficiencies and potential errors.

A purpose-built solution is designed from the ground up to facilitate communication across firms, ensuring that every stakeholder has real-time access to the information they need.

4. Integration Matters — A Buy Solution Can Work With What You Have

Many firms already have internal systems that handle parts of the municipal bond process. But the challenge isn’t just building new tools — it’s making them work with existing infrastructure.

A well-designed buy solution isn’t an “all-or-nothing” replacement. Instead, it enhances what firms already have, integrating with internal systems while extending capabilities to external partners. This allows firms to improve efficiency without disrupting established workflows.

The Smarter Path Forward

For firms navigating the complexities of municipal bond formation, the question isn’t just “Can we build this?” — it’s “Should we?

A purpose-built platform eliminates the long development cycles, high maintenance costs, and collaboration gaps that often come with internal systems. Instead, firms can adopt a solution that is already optimized for the industry, continuously updated, and designed to connect all stakeholders — both inside and outside the firm.

That’s exactly what Munichain does. Ready to see how it can work for your firm? Let’s talk.


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