Vontobel Financial Products has added Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) to its Deritrade Multi Issuer Platform (MIP) in Asia Pacific, in a move that demonstrates that competition in the multi-issuer platform segment continues to soar as distributors and private banks in the region seek to reduce operational costs and improve client offerings through automation.
Deritrade MIP has been pitching its 'front-to-back' offering to distributors and issuers in APAC on the basis that the platform enables the automation not only the price discovery of structured products, but the entire value chain from the point of issuance to distribution and post-trade life cycle management.
Anup Gupta (pictured), head of deritrade MIP in APAC, said that winning the support from CIC is a strong endorsement of the platform in the region following the joining of LGT, Maybank, KGI Securities and Union Bancaire Privée as the first four Asia-Pacific distributors in March.
"We have every indication we will soon add more potential distributors to the platform," said Gupta. "Besides, we are also working with a number of leading undisclosed issuers to onboard in APAC."
Remigio Luongo, who joined Vontobel Financial Products in Asia Pacific as chief executive in early June, said that the bank's Deritrade MIP platform is key to Vontobel's growth strategy in Asia Pacific.
"We have seen an increasing need for automation in the structured products space and whilst we expect the key market participants to deliver the necessary services we endeavour to support our business partners at this inflection point," he said in a statement. "The efficiency gains via automation will allow the relationship managers to dedicate more time to their clients' needs."
The Swiss bank rolled out its Deritrade MIP platform in Singapore in March 2014 with the aim of capitalising on its offering of reduced overall costs for distributors which would translate into more yield for clients. CIC becomes the seventh distributor to join the platform in APAC this year.
The CIC addition follows the launch last week of competing outfit Contineo. The Hong Kong-based multi-issuer structured products platform and messaging network backed by a consortium comprising AG Delta, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan and Societe Generale, went live on June 23 with some of the private banking units of the issuing banks (except Societe Generale's which sold its private banking unit to DBS in 2014), along with Julius Baer.
Deritrade MIP is seeking to replicate its Swiss operation which has already six prominent issuers including UBS, Vontobel, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale and Zurcher Kantonalbank, representing more than 70% of the exchange-traded structured products volumes in Switzerland. Deritrade has around 800 clients and more than 3,000 users in five countries.