Recent thematic inspections on private banks on the way they conduct their sales and advisory activities in Singapore conducted by the country’s securities watchdog have unveiled shortcomings relating to structured products.
Currencies and gold have dominated Chinese structured product market in the year to date, but further analysis of 2019 activity shows a unique balance with other asset classes demonstrating the flexibility and variety that structured products markets can provide.
The US bank, which is also seeking to resume CBBC trading, suspended trading on the Hong Kong Exchange in 2014 due to fierce competition and its modest market share despite the popularity of this product range among retail investors.
Three hundred and seventy-one structured products worth CNY43.6 billion ($6.3 billion) had strike dates in January 2020, down from 1,984 products with combined sales of CNY388 billion the same month in 2019.
The Singapore Exchange's €186m acquisition of smart beta index firm Scientific Beta aims to strengthen the exchange’s research-based index design capabilities as well as broadening the range of index products and client base.
There were 149 structured products (including flow, but excluding leverage and private banking), worth an estimated JPY311 billion ($2.8 billion), added to the SRP Japan database in January.
The new rules introduced by the Taiwan regulator are aimed at aligning the country’s financial supervision structures with Hong Kong and Singapore and increase investment activity in the country.
The UK banking group is seeking to reduce capital and costs in its underperforming businesses to enable continued investment in businesses with stronger returns and growth prospects.
Despite the ‘challenging’ market environment a record amount of structured products was issued on Leonteq’s platform in 2019.