Our annual SRP Americas 2026 conference took centre stage for the newsroom last week.
The winners of SRP awards were announced during the conference held between last Tuesday and Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona.
While the awards recognising the best issuers, distributors and service providers, individuals like Mary-Beth Dvorak, senior vice president at First Trust Portfolios, who won the SRP Americas Personality of the Year 2026 award were recognised for their significant contribution to the structured products industry. Dvorak has played a key role in building First Trust's structured products franchise, helping expand distribution through a specialist wholesaling model and strengthening relationships with financial advisers.
We are [increasingly] seeing structured product type payoffs and all of their varieties showing up in defined outcome ETFs - Maria Matusic, Mayer Brown
At one of the SRP Masterclass sessions, three lawyers from Mayer Brown discussed the different types of defined outcome products, especially ETF structures. The panel reviewed regulatory, tax and disclosure issues surrounding these products, noting that increasingly sophisticated payoffs strategies are migrating into ETF wrappers. Speakers also highlighted the transparency requirements for ETF issuers.
“We are [increasingly] seeing structured product type payoffs and all of their varieties showing up in defined outcome ETFs,” Maria Matusic, partner at Mayer Brown, told the audience at the conference.
The first panel kicked off last Wednesday, with Industry participants shared that favourable economic conditions, stronger equity markets, higher interest rates and broader distribution channels are driving rapid growth in US structured products. Speakers estimated the market is approaching US$300 billion pushed by Goldilocks effect.
The following panel highlighted how structured products are evolving from tactical trades into integrated portfolio allocations. Panellists from BNP Paribas, InspereX and Halo Investing cited strong retail and institutional demand, greater adviser education, and investors’ desire for defined outcomes and downside protection as key drivers of market growth.
Market
ETF provider Global X is expanding its lineup of income-oriented and risk-managed products, given that structured ETFs are making options-based investment strategies more accessible to investors by combining them with transparent and scalable ETF wrappers. The firm also expects ETFs and bespoke structured notes to coexist, serving different investor needs.
Another ETF provider VegaShares argues that "indexification" will contribute to the next stage of structured ETF growth, by embedding greater transparency and predictability to option-based strategies. The firm is strengthening its expertise on derivatives with rule-based autocallables and a pipeline of structured strategies.
On the indexing front Nasdaq expects increasing demand for higher-volatility equity strategies since the same index architecture is shared by structured notes, insurance products and structured ETFs. Its custom index now covers a diverse array of investment strategies and applications across products.
US distributor InspereX believes custom strategy indices are becoming the core building blocks of outcome-oriented investment solutions across structured products, ETFs and annuities. The firm believes that advisers are increasingly focused on achieving specific investment outcomes rather than choosing a particular wrapper, highlighting the importance of transparent and easily explainable indices.
Products and regulation
Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad launched the world's first structured warrants linked to the Hang Seng Biotech Index, giving Malaysian investors access to Hong Kong's healthcare and biotechnology sector. The launch forms part of the bank's broader strategy to expand its international product offering following previous warrants linked to major Hong Kong indices.
A study commissioned by the German association of structured securities analysed over 130,000 investment products worth nearly €96 billion and found that the volume-weighted average annual cost for structured investment products is 0.72%. The association said the research improves transparency and suggests product costs are lower than commonly assumed.
SRP reviewed a range of structured products across the world with strike dates between 20 and 26 September this year, including Belgium-issued cliquet product linked to the MSCI World index and an Italian product from Mediobanca providing exposure to gold ETFs.
Looking at the regulatory landscape, South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) warned investors about risks in commodity exchange-traded products due to the high concentration in leveraged and inverse products. The regulator also highlighted risks from daily rebalancing, elevated premium/discount ratios and delisting provisions for exchange-traded notes.
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