A securities dealer trades fixed income on its own book: government and corporate bonds, bought and sold directly rather than matched on the exchange board. Most of the licensees are banks.

This is why the bond market feels invisible compared with the share market. It is much larger and almost all of it happens by telephone and screen between dealers.

Through the dealer, which will quote you a price to buy or sell. For government paper specifically there is a second route that cuts them out: the Central Bank's own CSD, where you can bid at auction and hold bills and bonds directly.

The dealer's spread is built into the quote rather than charged as a fee, so the thing to compare is the price itself, from more than one of them.

The return belongs to the bond, not the dealer. A bond's yield depends on what you paid, what it pays, and how long is left — and the coupon on the certificate is not the yield.

Treasury bills and bonds are on Ipahco's comparison already, stated after the withholding tax that applies to each.