Latest: OCBC moves wealth advisory service online, sees 45% jump in sales including SPs

OCBC Bank has switched its wealth management products and services online during the lockdown – known as ‘circuit breaker’ in the country.

Singapore’s wealth advisory process is highly regulated, involving over 50 pages of documents and a comprehensive financial needs analysis (FNA). However, since 18 April, with the lockdown still in effect, more than 1,000 financial and wealth advisors have been conducting meetings and sales advisory via video and screen-sharing facilities to sell products.

The bank registered an increase of 45% in the sale of wealth management products in the first 10 days of launch compared to the prior 10 days, indicating a positive response from customers to non-face-to-face wealth conversations. The products range from unit trusts to bancassurance products, and from structured investments and bonds to foreign exchange products.

As a result, customers of OCBC Bank retail banking, OCBC Premier Banking and OCBC Premier Private Client were able to review their investment portfolios during a time of market volatility. While the take-up for the new process by customers of the retail banking segment have been ‘encouraging’, customers of OCBC Premier Banking and OCBC Premier Private Client have shown a better response as many trades were already done over the phone in the past, according to the bank.

The SRP database lists 13 structured products from OCBC Bank, including 12 products targeted at investors in Singapore, and one product targeted at investors in Malaysia.

Irish asset manager teams up with Goldman for autocall on Euronext ESG index

Irish asset manager Seaspray Financial has raised over €5.5m with its Global Equity ESG Kick-Out Bond. The product was sold via the company’s newly launched wealth management division, which already has approximately 150 clients with at least €500,000 to invest – much of it committed to structured products. The unit is led by Danny O'Leary, who was an associate director of Bank of Ireland Private Banking from 1999 to 2019.

The note has a maximum duration of 10-years and is linked to the performance of the Euronext CDP Environment World EW Decrement 5% Index, which is focused on companies which put the E of ESG (Environment: Climate, Weather and Forests) as a priority.

The product, for which a minimum investment of €100,000 applies, is listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and issued via Goldman Sachs.

Seaspray’s wealth division also sells structured products from other Irish parties, including BCP Asset Management, Blackbee Investments, and Cantor Fitzgerald.

CSOP licences Solactive gold index

Hong Kong based asset manager CSOP has licensed the Solactive Gold 1-Day Rolling Futures Index for its 2x leveraged Gold exchange-traded product (ETP).

The CSOP Gold Futures Daily (2x) Leveraged Product (Ticker: 7299.HK) is the first leveraged commodity product listed in Hong Kong. It aims to provide investors with a return of twice the daily performance of the Solactive Gold 1-Day Rolling Futures Index, which in turn tracks the performance of the CME (COMEX) active month gold future.

The CSOP Gold Futures Daily (2x) Leveraged Product was listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 5 June 2020.

Last month, the Hong Kong’s Securities Financial Commission (SFC) gave the green light to leverage and inverse (L&I) products. The regulator set out the requirements under which it would consider authorising L&I products for public offering in the country. Under the new framework, only swap-based synthetic replication and futures-based replication structures are allowed with leveraged products subject to a maximum leverage factor of two times (2x); and inverse products subject to a maximum leverage factor of one time (-1x) for mainland equity indices and two times (-2x) for other indices.

CIC partnership with M.M. Warburg & Co to include structured products

CIC, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, and German independent private bank M.M. Warburg & Co have combined forces in investment banking to extend the range of services offered to corporates and investors in Germany, France and in North America.

This long-term cooperation will begin by the distribution in France, the US and Canada of the research produced by M.M. Warburg & Co.

The cooperation agreement also covers equity capital markets (ECM) and brokerage activities. In the near term, M.M. Warburg & Co and CIC intend to broaden their collaboration to debt capital markets and structured products. Banque Européenne du Crédit Mutuel (BECM), the subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale in charge of commercial banking activity for companies in Germany, will support this cooperation.

One hundred and twenty live structured products that are distributed via CIC are listed on the SRP France database. The structures, which are worth approximately €2.8 billion, are issued via Crédit Mutuel.

ETC Group to list first centrally cleared bitcoin ETC

ETC Group has announced it will list the world’s first centrally cleared bitcoin ETC, the BTCetc Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto (BTCE) on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra platform in late June.

The exchange-traded cryptocurrency (ETC) tracks the price of bitcoin and is 100% physically backed bitcoin. It is the first cryptocurrency product to launch on Xetra, the inaugural exchange-traded Product (ETP) from ETC Group and the first cryptocurrency ETC to be available on HANetf’s white label ETP platform.

BTCE, which is approved by Bafin, the German regulator, is structured as an ETC that is physically backed by bitcoin. Each unit of BTCE gives the holder a claim on a predefined amount of bitcoin, and allows investors the option for redemption in bitcoin. 

Photo credit: Adam Nowakowski / Unsplash.