Asia Pacific has seen a lot of movement in the past week, with two high-profile people moves, legal updates and product launches.

Garbo Cheung, managing director, head of structured products development at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx), has left the exchange as she transitions to Citadel Enterprise Asia. She has previously worked at Nomura, Citigroup and ABN Amro.

Cheung will join the firm on 4 January 2021 as chief compliance officer covering both hedge funds and securities. She will be based in Hong Kong SAR, and report to Yvonne Tsui, general counsel in Hong Kong SAR, and Greg Johnson, group chief compliance officer in the US. She has been placed on gardening leave since mid-September with her last day of employment on 20 November, SRP has confirmed. Kenneth Kok, co-head of trading operations, will cover Cheung’s role on an interim basis.

Credit Suisse has bolstered its South Asia private banking team as it readies its next phase of expansion. Bie Lan Oey has joined the bank as vice chairman private banking Southeast Asia based in Singapore after 20 years of service at HSBC Private Banking. Oey reports to Benjamin Cavalli, head of private banking South Asia, and works closely with the leadership team within the Southeast Asia markets to strengthen the Swiss bank’s client relationships and instruct talent pool to position the bank well for the next phase of growth. She joins the team on 5 October.

A number of significant partnerships have also been announced in recent days.

In Sweden, Strukturinvest has taken over the secondary market for structured products that were initially sold by Exceed. The company took action after the Swedish regulator suspended the licence of securities firm Exceed Capital in June, for breaches in its financial advice practices.

“In close cooperation with the issuers, we are now acting as market maker for the products originally arranged by Exceed,” said Björn Johansson, deputy managing director at Strukturinvest.

In Brazil, UBS has announced a strategic alliance with Banco do Brasil and unveiled UBS BB Investment Bank as well as the leadership team that will spearhead the new venture.

Headquartered in Brazil (Sao Paulo), one of the most developed markets, UBS BB is positioned to target Latin America though main geographies of focus will be Argentina, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The leadership team will comprise of Daniel Bassan, chief executive officer, Sylvia Coutinho, vice chairman and board member, and Hélio Magalhães, chairman of the board.

The Federation of European Independent Financial Advisers (Feifa) has announced a new partnership with specialist structured products provider Investment Design & Distribution (Idad) to provide high quality professional development and training sessions for its members, “highlighting the risks in such products and the key aspects for advisers to look for and analyse”.

Under the partnership Idad will provide regular training and support to Feifa businesses, both remotely and in person, covering general investment themes as well as specifically looking at model portfolios and structured products.

Hang Seng China has issued its first structured deposit linked to Hang Seng Tech Index ETF, which covers the top 30 technology companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) by market value.

The product, under the ‘Asian up and out 步步盈’ series, which is aimed at bolstering the Hong Kong-Mainland cross listing market, struck on 23 September following a two-week subscription period. It has a lifespan of two years with the minimum investment of CNY50,000 (US$7,363).

In Hong Kong SAR, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has released a circular on the post-sale electronic dissemination of investment product documents, which applies to SFC-authorised unlisted structured products. Investors of SFC-authorised unlisted structured products, who are currently receiving paper documents, need to be notified at least one month before the adoption of e-dissemination arrangements.

Over in the UK, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published final rules banning the sale of derivatives and exchange-traded notes (ETNs) that reference certain types of crypto-assets to retail consumers.

The UK watchdog considers these products unsuitable for retail consumers due to the harm they pose. According to the FCA, these products cannot be reliably valued by retail consumers because of the inherent nature of the underlying assets, which means they have no reliable basis for valuation; the prevalence of market abuse and financial crime in the secondary market (eg cyber theft); and the extreme volatility in crypto-asset price movements.

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