This week there is coverage from the SRP France event, a regulatory update from Germany, plus all the latest people moves, market reviews and product information.
The SRP France 2025 Conference was held in Paris on 21 May. The event kicked off with a discussion highlighting the impact of global market conditions on the French structured products market.
Clients are looking to position themselves in a much more tactical and opportunistic way - Eric Sakoun, Kepler Cheuvreux
The demand for quicker launches, such as single-stock or static baskets, has increased due to the fast-moving market, panellists agreed.
“Clients are looking to position themselves in a much more tactical and opportunistic way,” said Eric Sakoun, director French distribution at Kepler Cheuvreux.
According to Dorian Raimond, head of trading and investments at Hilbert Investment Solutions, the structured products market has constantly reinvented itself since 2008, with capital protection products, especially those linked to interest rates currently all the rage.
“We have been doing almost nothing else for a year […] we only do Phoenix CMS and OAT,” said Fabrice Cohen, structured products manager wealth solutions at Generali.
Technology remains at the forefront of the French structured product market, evolving from being used as a simple lifecycle management tool to being leveraged as a tactical tool in many different areas. There has been a change in behaviour born out of the need to react to market changes a lot more quickly, according to Géraldine Laussat, global head of structured products at OTCX.
“This is something we see right through the product lifecycle, from pre-trade to execution to post-trade,” Laussat told the audience in Paris.
Staying in France, SRP’s Nikolay Nikolov compared how structured products in the French market performed relative to a fixed income investment and a direct investment in equities.
The German financial supervisory authority Bafin announced plans to restrict the marketing, distribution and sale of turbo certificates to retail investors based in Germany.
Under the new rules, market players will be required to comply with several obligations including the issue of a standardised risk warning which must show that seven out of 10 small investors suffer losses when trading turbo certificates.
In a reaction to Bafin’s announcement, the German association for structured securities (Bundesverband für Strukturierte Wertpapiere or BSW) said it will analyse the measures and discuss them with its members.
“Self-directed investors value knock-out warrants mainly due to the clarity of their price development and also use them in the context of a portfolio,” Christian Vollmuth, BSW’s managing director and board member told SRP.
In Switzerland, UBS is facing client compensation claims over losses from so-called Range Target Profit Forwards (RTPFs), which are currency-linked derivatives in which regular payments are made if an exchange rate remains within a predefined range. Parties that incurred losses will be supported by the Swiss Association for the Protection of Investors (Schweizerischer Anlegerschutzverein or SASV).
In people news, SRP learned that Jean-Baptiste Patois, managing director, head of equity derivatives ex-strategic derivatives, Asia Pacific at Barclays, parted ways with the UK bank.
Patois’s registration with Barclays Capital Asia ended on 23 April, according to the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong. He is also no longer registered with Barclays Bank since the same day, records from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority show.
iCapital hired Christine Berenger as senior vice president, head of international structured products, a newly created role while Rob Hocking, senior vice president and head of product innovation at Cboe, left the Chicago-based exchange after six years.
Meanwhile, former Leonteq CEO Jan Schoch joined Meleleo Consulting Group – a Swiss provider of structured products and pension solutions – as co-owner and member of the advisory board.
Sales of structured notes in Thailand increased by three percent year-on-year (YoY) in the first quarter of 2025, according to SRP Thailand Q1 2025 market review.
The latest volumes also reflected a 6.3% sales increase compared to the previous quarter
Krungthai Bank remained the largest issuer by sales volume in Thailand in Q1 2025, gathering an estimated THB10.6 billion (US$325m) from 158 product issuances.
Amundi reported assets under management for structured products stood at €42 billion as of 31 March 2025, up from €41 billion end-March 2024. However, €2 billion worth of outflows were registered in the quarter compared to positive inflows of €0.6 billion in Q1 2024.
‘Outflows continued in structured products in the absence of new marketing campaigns,’ said Nicolas Calcoen, deputy CEO.
Image: Jo Panuwat D/Adobe Stock.
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