The latest product news, market reviews, people moves and regulatory updates from SRP’s news desk, which this week saw structured products associations as well as regulators across jurisdictions taking center stage.
The week started with the launch of Korea’s first ETNs linked to Japanese government bonds brought to market by local securities house Meritz Securities. The Seoul-based issuer announced plans to list four ETNs on 10-year Japanese government bonds, including leveraged and inverse products, on the Korea Exchange at the end of the month.
In Malaysia, Kenanga Bank rolled out a new series of Hang Seng-linked warrants as part of the expansion of its product offering to grow its presence in East Asia.
BNP Paribas which took the Best House, Taiwan award within the manufacturer category at the SRP Asia Pacific 2025 awards, told SRP about its plans to push further its cross-asset capabilities in Taiwan, following the rollout of the market’s first batch of credit-linked notes (CLNs) issued under the Green Bond Framework in January 2024.
Other new launches last week include the launch of its first indexed universal life (UL) product in Hong Kong linked to the price of gold, as the insurer seeks to capitalise on the rising demand from high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) for structured insurance products; as well as Standard Bank’s launch of a new structured investment linked to gold targeted at retail investors in South Africa.
In Europe, SRP caught up with Zak de Mariveles, chairman of the UKSPA, to discuss some of the top items on the association’s agenda for 2025. De Mariveles told SRP that the UKSPA has several initiatives in the pipeline, including the ongoing work on Value for Money (VfM) assessments for further asset classes, and the launch of a new Customer Understanding initiative.
The Swiss structured products association (SSPA) finalised its guidelines for tracker certificates linked to non-tradable underlyings. Although not binding, the obligation to label trackers linked to non-tradable underlyings highlights the potential lack of an established market or secondary trading platform for these assets and the risk disclosure obligation should enable investors to make an informed investment decision, according to the SSPA.
ON the regulatory side, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong said a total of HK$99 billion (US$12.6 billion) worth of unlisted structured investment products (SIPs) were issued during the year ending March 2025, representing a 94% surge from the prior year.
According to its annual report, there were some 391 authorised SIPs recorded during the financial year, up by a quarter compared to the prior-year period, which are recorded on a ‘one product per key facts statement’ basis.
In the US market, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement addressing common disclosure issues observed during its review of filings for non-securities-based crypto ETPs and gave the greenlight to the first multi-crypto asset spot ETP to be listed by Grayscale on NYSE Arca.
On the departures and arrivals department, RBC continues with its QIS structuring push following the appointment of Elodie Nguyen Dinh to the newly created role of managing director, structuring infrastructure, in London as well as the appointment of Tim Scanlon as managing director, head of US hedge fund equity derivative (EQD) sales based in New York, reporting to Mike Heraty, US head of EQD sales and global head of QIS distribution.
In Hong Kong, William Hui has joined Hang Seng Bank as head of capital markets in investment and wealth solutions after 10 years at Standard Chartered Bank. Based in the Hong Kong SAR, Hui will be responsible for delivering capital markets solutions including structured products, fixed income and investment foreign exchange (FX) for mass to high-net-worth clients. He will report to Ricky Lin, the Hong Kong bank’s head of investments and wealth solutions.
Finally on the analysis front, we compared the characteristics and performance of two similar custom underlying strategies sold in the US market via structured products; analysed payoff activity across Europe in Q1 25 and explored how close yield enhancement autocallable products came to breaching their knock-in barriers or crossed them following the market correction and rebound earlier this year as a result of the new tariffs introduced by the US administration.
Image: Fabio Principe/Adobe Stock
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