More reporting is brought to you from our SRP Apac 2025 Conference that was held in Hong Kong SAR on 10 June, followed closely by the annual conference for China.
Starting in Hong Kong, in a fireside chat, two equity derivatives executives from South Korea shared their concern and optimism on the domestic structured products market where equity-linked securities (ELS) sales activities saw “a bit of recovery” after a nose dive in 2024.
What is ‘bionic advisory’ in wealth management? Three panellists from varying background sought to build deeper client relationships through artificial intelligence (AI) and technology, which has evolved from application of roboadvisors over the past decade.
At the same time, buy-side delegates from Nomura and Schroders exchanged their views on the opportunities arising from different wrappers for structured products beyond notes in Asia where payoffs featuring knock-in and knock-out tend to dominate the discussions.
Schroders has been looking to leverage its indexing capabilities in the structured products market to deliver ‘active expertise and efficient alternatives’ to passive strategies in index format globally, SRP reported earlier.
In China, a growing number of investors have started embracing longer-tenor structured products with the aim of capturing higher yields in the country’s prolonged low interest environment, said a senior sales executive at J.P. Morgan at the SRP China 2025 Conference in Shanghai on 17 June.
Also, don’t forget to check out the winners of SRP China 2025 Awards which was presented at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai.
Staying in Asia, Ishan Sarkar, managing director, head of capital markets for Southeast Asia at HSBC’s investments and wealth solutions (IWS) division, has been promoted to lead the UK bank’s wealth and premier solutions for Singapore. The private banker joined HSBC as head of structured products, Southeast Asia based in Singapore.
The Taiwan market continues to drive worst-of structures in 2024, while Hong Kong SAR and South Korea are shifting towards single stock products, our Spotlight on Apac’s asset classes… worst-of-stocks lead the pack in 2024 shows.
Across the Pacific, bustling activities are recorded in the US annuity space.
Rila products generated US$17.4 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2025, a 20% increase for the first quarter year-on-year (YoY) while FIAs recorded a three percent decline in sales at US$27.8 billion, according to the latest U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey by Limra, which represents 85% of the total annuity market.
A survey conducted by Goldman Sachs Asset Management shows that almost nine out of ten (88%) of the insurer offer structured investments or buffered/defined outcome strategies on their platforms with Rilas driving increasing activity.
Risk control indices, which are increasingly common as the underlying assets for both FIAs and Rilas, with longer live performance delivered larger drawdowns during the market turmoil recorded between Liberation Day and the Geneva announcement on the pause of tariffs with China, the latest analysis by The Index Standard reveals.
Meanwhile, multi-issuer platform iCapital said in its 2025 Global Advisor Survey that advisor education and technology needs are the top priorities amid strong investor appetite for private markets solutions.
In Europe, some 13,577 structured products went listed on SIX Swiss Exchange in May, down 48% compared to the historical high in April, when 26,169 new products were recorded.
The German financial regulator BaFin has flagged inconsistent cost disclosures, potentially making it harder for clients to compare investment products. It has completed an investigation into the production and sale of interest rate certificates (zins-zertifikate) and express certificates (express-zertifikate).
In Belgium, 16% of retail investors have structured products in their investment portfolios, according to a survey conducted by the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA).
Last but not least, our weekly product wrap brings you the latest launches by Goldman Sachs and more.
Image: Jason Wells/Adobe Stock
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