DBS continues to lead as the largest issuer by number of issuances during the quarter, followed by UBS and HSBC.
Taiwan’s structured note issuances soared 84% year-on-year to over 21,400 products in the first quarter of the year, SRP data shows.
The latest figure on issuance reflects a 18.5% pullback from the prior quarter’s high of over 26,300 issuances.
Taiwan: number of structured note issuances by quarter
Source: SRP
Underlyings, payoffs
Equity basket structures accounted for 93% of the total issuances, or 20,009 products, in the three months ending March, almost doubling from the prior year’s period. The top four most-featured underlyings in basket structures all came from semiconductor stocks, including Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom, excluding unspecified assets.
Tesla, last year’s second most favoured underlying based on SRP data, slipped to fifth place despite a higher issuance to over 1,300 products from some 800 products last year’s same period.
Many of the products linked to equity baskets during the quarter were structured as snowball autocallable notes, with some 7,800 also structured with a worst-ofpayoff and some 3,000 incorporating a knock-in barrier.
Taiwan: structured notes issuances’ asset class in Q1 2026
Source: SRP
Interest rates trailed baskets of equities as the next most-used asset class. Over 600 rate-linked issuances were recorded from January to March, a 1.3 times higher year-on-year. The Callable accrual range was the most used payoff profile.
The 10-year USD constant maturity swap rate continued to lead the chart as the most-used rate underlying, with 186 issuances in Q1 2026 (excluding unspecified underlyings), higher from 28 products recording during the same period of last year. Next in line were the 10-year USD secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) ICE swap rate (30 products) and Taiwan government bond (19 products).
Hybrid products saw 375 issuances during the January-March period, while products linked to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded 106 issuances, with the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (48) and iShares Semiconductor ETF (43) driving most of the sales.
There were also 19 structured note products tracking the Europe ECX EUA Future launched during the quarter – they were all issued by DBS Bank (Taiwan).
Issuers
DBS Bank (Taiwan) maintained its position as the country’s largest structured note issuer by number of products in Q1 2026, manufacturing over 6,200 products towards the market.
The latest issuance figure by the Singaporean bank also translated into a 29% market share among 15 investment banking issuers in Taiwan. DBS Bank’s issuance was up more than 93% year-on-year, but down 20% from Q4 2025.
UBS, the runner-up, gathered over 1,900 issuances in the three months ended March, 1.9 times higher compared with last year’s same period. This has moved its market share by issuance to nine percent from 5.6% a year ago.
The Swiss bank’s latest issuances also went up 65% on a quarterly basis (Q4 2025: 1,165 products).
Taiwan: top 10 issuers by number of product issuance in Q1 2026
Source: SRP
HSBC Bank and Natixis followed behind, recording 1,839 and 1,711 products during the quarter, respectively. The UK bank’s issuance surged 78% year-on-year, while the French bank’s issuance activity rose by nearly 93%.
In March, Natixis also tapped Taipei-based insurer Shin Kong Life Insurance to gear up for an annuity-insurance-wrapped structured note launch on the ESG exposure. Set to strike on 18 May, the eight-year AUD-denominated structured note features a Green Bond issued by the French issuer, embedding optionality linked to the iEdge ESG Focus Transpacific SDG 25 index (price return).
The issuer ranking is completed by BNP Paribas (1,459) and Morgan Stanley (1,354) – the French bank’s issuance doubled from a year ago while the US bank posted an 82% rise in issuance.
Looking ahead
More industry participants are deepening their penetration in Taiwan’s structured note makret.
In March, Standard Chartered Bank launched a structured product automated pricing platform in Taiwan, in partnership with FinIQ.
The electronic platform currently features pricing for three investment bank issuers – Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and BNP Paribas – where investors can obtain real-time quotes of structured notes and automated product term sheets from the bank’s relationship managers, Samrat Khosla, head of wealth solutions at Standard Chartered Taiwan, told SRP in an interview.
The UK bank is looking to finalise the ‘click-and-trade’ feature, which will allow end investors to access pricing and place structured note orders directly from their mobile banking app by the end of the year, Khosla said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission announced in February that it is set to relax eligibility requirements for securities firms to apply for high-asset business and sales targets for structured notes issued by securities firms’ overseas subsidiaries in an effort to expand the client base.
Image: Just Life/Adobe Stock
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