ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Stepping into new territory, Alaska USA Trust Company has added conduit lending services to its lineup after nearly 20 years of offering securities lending to custodial agent services for fixed income securities.

The new service is the result of an agreement with LendEX, (www.lendexchange.com) institutional securities lending portal that officially opened on April 1 and is backed by former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt and John Tabacco, founder of an online stock tracking company.

With conduit lending, a financial institution acts a conduit or credit intermediary between a borrower and the owner of the securities. Potential LendEX securities lending participants include insurance companies, public and private pension funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, endowments and banks and broker dealers. Alaska USA Trust will act as a conduit for these potential participants.

Alaska USA Trust President Glenn Cipriano said that securities lending's growth combined with the use of more electronic tools will transform the business.

“Five years from now, it's going to be a completely different market,” Cipriano said. “It will be an institutional electronic exchange just like everything else. This looks to be the last vestige of the broker to broker business.”

Alaska USA Trust, a wholly-owned subsidiary of $3.6 billion Alaska FCU, has more than $7 billion in assets under administration.