Big money managers and Wall Street banks are laying the groundwork for a new marketplace for corporate bonds, an effort that highlights the heft of large investors and the impact of new rules limiting bank risk-taking.

In recent weeks, senior traders at investment managers and big Wall Street banks have been discussing how the financial industry can set up a centralized electronic market that would let all participants trade bonds freely with one another, according to people involved in the talks.

The discussions are at an early stage and details have yet to be worked out. Numerous previous efforts at starting electronic-trading venues for bonds have failed to gain traction among a wide cross section of users, in part because there are so many different bonds, which makes it hard to find ready buyers and sellers for the same security. At the same time, the talks point to an urgency in the industry to respond to regulatory shifts that some users fear will make bond trading more expensive.

Firms involved in the early discussions include Columbia Management, a unit of Ameriprise Financial Inc., Fidelity Investments and State Street Global Advisors , in addition to more than half a dozen big Wall Street dealers. Other asset managers around the country are expected to join the conversation in coming months, as participants push for an industrywide solution to improve liquidity in the $8.1 trillion corporate-bond market.

Money-management company BlackRock Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been planning new bond networks that would electronically link up buyers and sellers of corporate bonds. Some rivals of these firms feel, however, that the industry still needs a broader solution because the two networks may not do enough to improve trading conditions for all market participants.