Online trading systems enable banks (and other financial institutions) to automate the buying and selling of financial instruments with their corporate and institutional clients. Such systems are used by the Sales and Trading division of a bank to trade with corporate treasurers and buy-side traders for the bank's corporate and institutional clients.

For most financial products, this trading is performed "over the counter" (i.e. on the telephone). The Internet and online trading systems now allow this trading to be automated and enhanced. Automated trading entails all or some of the following: order entry though a computer, automatic and semi-automatic price generation, automatic order filling, interactive price negotiation, automatic trade ticket generation, and automatic transfer of trade data to the back office. Automation increases productivity, reduces the banks internal costs and improves service to clients by offering 24x7 trading, a faster response and a broader range of financial products.