The Netherlands’ ING said it is targeting a 50% share of the listed leveraged products market as it announced the launch of its new Sprinter product. The certificates, which offers investors the option to benefit from a leveraged long or short position on an underlying (as with ABN Amro’s turbos and speeders issued by Citi and Commerzbank), was officially launched yesterday following a testing phase in October, in which 159 sprinters were introduced via Euronext Amsterdam.

“In the current market there is a demand for simple, transparent products which are able to translate a market vision into results,” said Leen Verdonk, who along with Marcel Pronk, is responsible within ING for the launch of the new product. “With the launch of the sprinters we aim to offer investors a strong alternative for turbos and speeders. We hope to offer investors a high level of service, where quality is more important than quantity,” he told SRP.

The 159 Sprinters launched so far have 50 different underlyings ranging from shares and indices to commodities, interest and fx rates. ING confirms that at first it will start with a limited number of underlyings, although it does aim to expand on this. “Initially we will focus on underlyings currently popular with Dutch investors such as the AEX, EUR/USD, oil and gold,” said Marcel Pronk. “With this type of product the 80/20 rule applies, where 80% of the volume is invested in only 20% of the products.”

The bank, which has created a special website for the sprinters, will initially focus on the experienced investor who is familiar with the product, but the aim is to broaden the target audience in the coming months, eventually even looking further afield across Europe and Asia. “We’re not introducing this product to generate huge turnovers within two or three months,” Verdonk said “We’re in this for the long term.”

SRP’s Dutch database currently lists 8,535 ABN Amro turbos, 3,267 speeders and limited speeders from Citigroup Global Markets, 2,934 speeders from Commerzbank and 159 ING Sprinters. The turbos from ABN, speeders from Commerzbank and sprinters from ING are also available to Belgian investors.

These products are available in Leverage Products (The Netherlands and Belgium).