Sales for the Macquarie Apex's first series which targets more affluent retail investors have been encouraging, according to the provider.
"The product's payoff was chosen after extensive market research and we believe it best captures and presents the key elements of returns, time, level of complexity and the attractiveness of the underlying securities," executive director, Peter van der Westhuyzen, said. "We see that over time, each series will raise between A$5m ($5.2m) and A$10m ($10.4m)."
The Macquarie Apex Notes are income products linked to a basket of shares offering fixed quarterly coupons, regardless of the performance of the underlying.
Series J carries an indicative coupon of 13.12% to 15.72% pa and is linked to Australia & New Zealand Banking, Rio Tinto and Woolworths. Series K has an indicative coupon of 13.45% to 16.13% pa and is linked to Australian & New Zealand Banking, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, QBE Insurance and Woolworths.
Provided none of the underlying shares is at or below the protective barrier of 70% for Series J and 65% for Series K at any time during the investment period, 100% initial capital will be returned at maturity.
"We have some clients who are comfortable with the risk/reward of this sort of investment," van der Westhuyzen said. "Worst case, the investor will receive shares to the value of the worst performing security in the event that it closes below the barrier."
The bank is also making an effort to increase the transparency of this product by providing high levels of education and case studies, as well as research reports to detail the risk of investing in Apex.
These products are open until 11 May 2012. Minimum investment is A$50,000 ($52,010). Macquarie expects to offer a new series every two months with each optimised for maximum payoff at the time.