SRP Digest: Restrictions and recommendations
Subscription may be required to view certain articles.
The latest regulatory updates, market reviews, people moves and product information from SRP’s news desk.
The week kicked off with new regulatory developments in South Korea where banks face sales restrictions for equity-linked securities (ELS) as the local regulator tightens distribution rules.
ELS will only be permitted for distribution through banks’ flagship stores?with sufficient consumer protection measures in place, according to the measures released by South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC).
Moreover, ELS investment recommendations are only available to consumers who are deemed fit to tolerate 100% loss, the FSC stated.
Most of the activity involving gold has been concentrated in the FX market, either buy directly or through target redemption forwards - Karrie Fung, UBP
Asian markets are contemplating safe-haven investment themes as investors are gearing up to face uncertainty?resulting from US President Donald Trump's recent imposition of tariffs on some of the world's largest economies. Industry participants in Asia have told SRP the number of structured products linked to gold have?caught the attention of bearish investors.
“Most of the activity involving gold has been concentrated in the FX market, either buy directly or through target redemption forwards, particularly towards the end of 2024,” said Karrie Fung, head of wealth management sales and execution for Asia at Union Bancaire Privée (UBP).
In Hong Kong SAR, BNP Paribas hired Alvin Li, former director at UBS, to lead its listed structured products team. In his new role,?Li will oversee the bank’s development and growth of exchange-traded solutions across the Asia Pacific region
Thalia Chryssikou, a former Goldman Sachs partner, joined European hedge fund Brevan Howard as senior portfolio manager in London. Chryssikou left Goldman in October last year following a 26-year spell with the US bank, most recently as global head of fixed income currencies and commodity (FICC) sales strategies and structuring.
Meanwhile, external asset manager Wrise Group promoted structured product?specialist?Jingwei Chen to regional chief investment officer while Varun Jain has left MerQube to take the role of chief revenue officer at Bita, a German index developer and infrastructure provider affiliated with SIX Swiss Exchange.
There were January market reviews for Switzerland and the UK? with yield enhancement products continuing to dominate the former, holding a 90% share, slightly down from 94% in December 2024 but still significantly higher than their 80% share in January 2024.
The 72 structured products publicly offered in the UK market in January were exclusively linked to equity indices, with the FTSE 100 index, seen in 58 products, the preferred option for the UK investor. In December 2024, the offering also included interest rates linked products while in January last year a further three asset classes were used: single shares, credit, and hybrid.
Also in the UK, private equity backed Saltus Group acquired Lowes Financial Management. The Newcastle based advice firm, which has its own investment arm, has about ￡1 billion in assets under advice and was run by managing director Ian Lowes for more than 22 years.?
During 2024, the US structured notes market reached a historic high at US$149.4 billion, up 46% from the previous year, according to SRP data. The gross sales, or traded notional, comprise US$139.9 billion registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and US$9.5 billion unregistered, known as 3(a)(2) or Regulation S programmes.
In Slovakia, the market has seen a shift towards capital protection products driven by the demand for FX-linked deposits. In total, five different asset classes were available to the Slovak investor in 2024 compared to eight the previous year.
Some 40,404 new structured products were listed across Euronext exchanges in January 2025 while there was more product news in Belgium, where Degroof Petercam, a private bank founded in 1871, distributed Lock-In Certificate MSCI World 2030. The product is the bank’s first on the SRP Belgium database since November 2009. It is also available via the Belgium branch of Indosuez Wealth Management Europe.
Finally, Australia's digital asset trading firm Zerocap is issuing the country's first structured notes tracking the CoinDesk 20 Index.?
The new products will be constructed in a partial capital-protected participation notes format, tracking the CoinDesk 20 Index, a market capitalisation weighted index comprising the top 20 cryptocurrencies led by a 30% cap on Bitcoin (BTC) and a 20% cap on Ethereum (ETH) and others.