The expansion of structured products in Asia continues unabated, with more key appointments being announced. In other news, if you haven’t already looked at our new lifecycle management tool, StructrPro, please visit our website!

The private banking arm of OCBC Bank has brought in four structured product specialists from UBS in Singapore as it sets up a dedicated team to bolster the wealth offerings. Bank of Singapore (BoS) has hired James Chye, Jiaxuan Wu and Randall Wee following the appointment of Vivienne Chia in September as managing director, global head of investment advisory solutions, according to a spokesperson. 

Chia, who was ex-head of structured products origination and product management for Apac, global markets at UBS, brought in the three bankers from her previous team.

Nomura Holdings has posted a net revenue in its global markets (GM) business of JPY163.8 billion (US$1.42 billion) from October to December, a 19% increase quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), or down 13% year-on-year (YoY), according to its latest quarterly earnings.

Cash equities also delivered ‘robust performance’ in Americas. Equities and fixed income accounted for 46.3% and 53.7% of the GM net revenue, respectively. The Americas was the only region delivering growth in the equities division as Asia ex-Japan saw its equities net revenue falling by 15% QoQ mainly due to derivatives and a slow-down in Japan’s cash equities business.

Singapore Exchange (SGX) has posted derivatives revenue of S$251,2m (US$187.2m) in H1 FY22 ended in December 2021, up 3.7% year-on-year (YoY), despite a slowdown in equities. Equity derivatives accounted for 57.2% of the revenue, or SG$143.8m, translating to a 3.9% decrease YoY, while currency and commodity derivatives saw their revenue climb by 16.1% to SG$107.4m, according to the exchange.

BNP Paribas posted revenues of €11.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 3.7% compared to Q4 2020, according to the latest results published by the French international banking group. Revenues for full year 2021, at €46.2 billion, increased by 4.4% compared to 2020. Q4 2021 revenues in corporate & institutional banking (CIB), at €3.3 billion, decreased by 1.5% compared to the high base of the prior year quarter.

Global markets revenues were down 10.7% from Q4 2020 while revenues in fixed income, currencies and commodities, at €755m, decreased by 24.6%, in a challenging market, particularly in rates. Equity & prime services revenues increased by 17.4% and included the contribution of the integration of BNP Paribas Exane (close to €95m) and a strong momentum in prime services but lower client activity in equity derivatives this quarter.

In the latest platform news, Halo is the latest to announce it is expanding further into Europe, a few months after Luma. Halo Investing Europe has become a new partner member of the Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA) replacing Swiss broker Picard Angst, which brought the platform to Europe as a partner. In October 2021, the US platform secured US$100m in series C funding from major investors which will be used to drive the company’s global expansion as well as new product developments.

Finally, our latest performance report looks at the French market. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic lockdowns, the dividend crisis and the autocallable woes caused by the market correction of 2020 which resulted in hedging issues and missing potential maturities, the French market bounced back in 2021.

For last year’s analysis we reviewed over 3,000 products with maturity or potential early redemption dates between October 2020 and October 2021, of which 1,887 products matured or expired early. Of these, seven percent reached their organic maturity date and 93% triggered early maturity. Ninety nine percent of all products matured delivered a positive performance with annualised returns of between 0.6% and 65%.

The average annualised return of all products maturing in 2021 stood 7.8%, or 2.5% more than the annualised performance we reported for the previous 12-month period. Of the products matured, 34% paid between six and eight percent.

Overall, 85% of the products matured delivered a performance of ≥ 5%, and only five products delivered a loss to investors upon maturity. Negative maturities ranged from -0.85% pa. and -27.5% pa.

Image credit: iStock