Grant Street Group (formerly MuniAuction), the Pittsburgh based Internet auction house for fixed-income securities, recently used its new money market investment platform, YieldAuction, to solicit $5 million of CDs from South Carolina banks for Lexington County. Traditionally, government entities and school districts solicit bids from banks via phone. Using the YieldAuction website, municipalities are able to solicit bids easily and efficiently from a larger number of banks via the Internet and to conduct an on-line auction in which these banks bid against each other for the deposit. The municipality gets the benefit of a higher investment rate from the combination of increased competition and the auction format. In the Lexington County auction, seven South Carolina banks submitted over thirty bids during the thirty-minute auction.
Bill Rowell, Treasurer of Lexington County, and Brad Mathis, Deputy Treasurer, said they were very pleased with the results of this first auction. David Hasenkopf, Director of Sales and Marketing for Grant Street Group, said, "We are delighted to have Lexington County as the first user of YieldAuction in South Carolina. We look forward to making YieldAuction available to other users in the State as well."