SRP’s news desk reviews the most read stories in the past week.
Autocall exchange-traded fund (ETF) specialist Calamos Investments is gearing up to launch the Calamos Least-Of Autocallable Income ETF, extending its product range based on structured note payoffs. The product provides exposure to a laddered portfolio of synthetic worst-of autocallable notes linked to the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, Invesco QQQ Trust and iShares Russell 2000 ETF.
Developed with index providers MerQube and Citibank, the product seeks to bring traditional structured note features such as autocallability, coupon memory and downside barriers into an ETF wrapper.
Market
US financial services firm InspereX is scaling its structured products business through investments in sales, adviser education and technology, with registered investment advisers a strong growth driver. The firm was the largest non-bank structured products distributor in the US in 2025, marketing over US$8.3 billion of products.
Bank of America emerged as the leading issuer of interest-rate structured products in the Americas in 2025, selling US$16.7 billion across 450 products. Executives attributed the recovery of the asset class to higher interest rates and volatility. The bank's performance was recognised at the SRP Americas Awards, where it won Best House, Interest Rates.
European platform SILEX celebrated its 10th anniversary, having grown from a two-person start-up into a global business with more than 100 employees, with around €30 billion in structured products and €1.3bn in assets under supervision. The company is expanding beyond structured products into discretionary portfolio management and family office services.
China's Shanghai Pudong Development Bank is expanding its strategy index business as lower interest rates drive Chinese investors to seek higher-yielding alternatives. The bank sees strong opportunities for structured deposits linked to strategy indices, particularly as investors balance the desire for enhanced returns against concerns about equity market volatility.
Financial technology firm Numerix showcased how agentic AI can automate the structured product pricing workflow by converting a term sheet into executable pricing model. During a live demonstration, the technology generated pricing code for a worst-of barrier reverse convertible, illustrating AI’s potential to streamline quantitative development, documentation review and product structuring.
Market review and regulation
The US structured products market continued its strong expansion in the first half of 2026, with issuance reaching roughly US$90 billion to US$95 billion and net inflows around US$17.5 billion. Demand has increasingly shifted from single-index products toward multi-index structures, while the largest payoff category belonged to income autocalables.
In Hong Kong, the structured products market generated roughly HK$1.04 trillion in sales during Q3 2026, up 36% year-on-year. Single-stock-linked products remained dominant and delivered the strongest growth, while share basket structures lost market share. The market became increasingly concentrated, with the top two asset classes accounting for more than 99% of issuance volumes.
In the UK market, Customer Understanding Exchange partnered with risk platform Amplifi to improve financial services firms enhance customer comprehension of complex financial products. By combining AI-driven document analysis with consumer testing, the aim is to help issuers and distributors assess whether disclosures and marketing materials adequately communicate risks, returns and product features.
In the US, although Uthe Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's (Finra) newly amended Rule 2210 permits broker-dealers to use projected performance and targeted returns in certain communications, industry experts expect limited impact on retail structured products marketing. Restrictions around mass-market communications and ongoing compliance obligations are likely to keep current marketing practices largely unchanged, according to Chris Schell, partner at Davvis Polk.
Technology and people
AI-powered portfolio construction tools offer structured product issuers a way to build more customised equity baskets, by building and rebalancing portfolio handled by machine leaning models rather than fixed selection rules. Platforms such as Arabesque AI’s AutoCIO use machine learning forecasts to help build equity portfolios subject to specified constraints.
Vega Capital Partners appointed former UBS structured products and exchange-traded product distribution executive Kunal Malhotra as managing director and head of commercial strategy and partnerships. Malhotra will lead partnerships and growth initiatives across registered investment advisers, broker-dealers, family offices, private banks and institutional investors.
A series of senior industry hires across structured products, index development and investment solutions. Notable moves include Jay Modi joining Halo Investing from Bloomberg, alongside appointments across Solactive, Maverix, Solactive, MSCI, Standard Chartered and MUFG.
Image: Worawut/Adobe Stock