Investec Structured Products (ISP) has backed the UK Structured Products Association initiative to launch standardised Product Codes in the UK market. The bank, which deals directly with financial advisers, will provide the codes for all of its current and prospective products, according to Gary Dale, head of intermediary sales at ISP.
"We have started including information on the new UKSPA codes in our financial adviser facing Plan overview document and website, and we hope that the release of these codes represents a significant milestone for structured products - now increasingly seen as a valuable, comprehensible, element of any investment portfolio," said Dale in a release.
The UKSPA has 12 members and works with IFAs, the regulator and its codes are broken down into four main sectors: protected growth, non-protected growth, protected income and non-protected income.
"Within the UK structured products industry, often the same type of product will be marketed under a different name by different providers," he said. "By introducing the UKSPA Product Codes, we hope the comparison between these products becomes easier," said Zak de Mariveles, UKSPA chairman.
The codes were introduced in November 2014 as part of the association's activities to promote transparency and education within the UK structured products market, as well as to provide uniformity in the product nomenclature across the UK.
Investec follows Morgan Stanley and Reyker which were among the first providers in the UK to adopt the association's codes.
According to SRP data, Investec marketed over 100 structured products among UK IFAs in 2014 of which 35 were fully protected structured deposits and 69 were capital-at-risk structured investments. Investec is the leading provider in the UK retail structured products market with an estimated 28% market share having sold an estimated £700m in 2014.
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