Salt Financial and Nasdaq have teamed up to launch the Nasdaq-100 5% Target Volatility Index to provide exposure to components of the Nasdaq-100 Index for their fixed indexed annuities ‘in a format that aims for stability in volatile markets’.

The index was created using Salt Financial's proprietary truVol Risk Control Engine (RCE) and is the first in a projected series of new products Nasdaq and Salt Financial will develop tailored for the insurance carriers. 

The suite of indexes to be developed by Nasdaq and Salt Financial will provide insurance companies with new volatility-controlled strategies leveraging popular Nasdaq indexes and powered by Salt's next-generation risk control mechanism, according to Cameron Lilja (pictured), vice president, global head of index product at Nasdaq. 

The truVol Risk Control Engine (RCE) is a powerful, patent-pending risk management toolkit designed to target volatility in risk-controlled index strategies. The use of historical intraday data in truVol can help increase targeting accuracy and responsiveness, aiming to improve product participation rates and outcomes for annuity investors.

Swissquote joins Leonteq's MIP

Leonteq has announced today the addition of Swissquote to its multi-issuer platform (MIP).

At the beginning of 2022, Leonteq and Swissquote announced their cooperation in structured investment products. As part of the cooperation, Swissquote acts as the issuer of structured investment products, while Leonteq provides services along the value chain.

Under the agreement, Swissquote is responsible for the distribution of its products to its own client base, including public distribution in Switzerland.

After completion of a first phase of development and implementation, Swissquote’s products are now available for Leonteq’s clients on Leonteq’s structured products platform LynQs. The new product offering by Swissquote focuses initially on yield enhancement payoffs and includes a range of underlyings including underlying strategies wrapped as actively managed certificates (AMCs) and all major currencies. Swissquote’s products are available for distribution in more than 30 markets across EMEA and select APAC countries for private placements.

‘Swissquote products are an ideal complement to our existing offering and provide our clients exposure to a distinct range of structured investment products issued by a market leader in the online banking realm,’ said Alessandro Ricci (right), head investment solutions and member of the Executive Committee of Leonteq.

‘LynQs functionalities will enable us to provide access to a wider investor base as we chart this new territory of becoming an issuer of structured products,”’ said Peter , head of investment products at Swissquote.

S&P DJI, JPX roll out new Japan underlyings

S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) and the Japan Exchange have co-launched the S&P/JPX 500 ESG Score Tilted Index Series today (28 March), which is designed to improve the ESG characteristics of Japan’s Topix 500 while offering a similar risk and return profile of its parent index.

The indices employ a range of scaling factors that provide tilting of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 when applied to the weighting scheme with the S&P/JPX 500 ESG Score Tilted Index (0.5) serving as the standard tilted index.

‘Higher scaling factors imply that the tilted index would have relatively higher S&P DJI ESG score improvement, but also greater differences in constituent weights relative to the parent index,’ stated S&P DJI.

On average, the index series has achieved between 12% to 40% S&P DJI ESG score improvement with 0.5% to 1.5% annual tracking error against the Topix 500 over the past 10 years.

There’re 696 live TOPIX-linked structured products comprising private and public offerings in the market with a concentration in the US and Austria, SRP data shows. Majority of them are deployed with enhanced tracker, capped call or protected tracker payoffs.

ESAs unveil SFDR regime timetable

EBA, Eiopa and Esma - the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have updated their joint supervisory statement on the application of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

This includes a new timeline, expectations about the explicit quantification of the product disclosures under Articles 5 and 6 of the Taxonomy Regulation, and the use of estimates.

The supervisory statement aims to promote an effective and consistent application and national supervision of the SFDR, to creating a level playing field and protect investors.

The ESAs recommend that national competent authorities and market participants use the current interim period from 10 March 2021 until 1 January 2023 to prepare for the application of the forthcoming Commission Delegated Regulation containing the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) while also applying the relevant measures of SFDR and the Taxonomy Regulation.

Financial market participants must provide during the interim period an explicit quantification, through the numerical disclosure of the percentage, of the extent to which investments underlying the financial product are taxonomy-aligned.

The European Commission is required to endorse the ESAs draft RTS within three months of the publication. Subject to the non-objection by the European Parliament and Council of the European Union – within three months following the Commission’s endorsement – the RTS will be adopted by the Commission by means of a delegated regulation.

Halo onboards new product providers

Indexed annuities provider Pacific Life has joined Halo Investing digital annuities platform.

Pacific Life will offer its annuities lineup on Halo, joining AIG Life & Retirement, Great American Life Insurance Company, Jackson Life Insurance, among others. In addition to providing access to a range of indexed annuities from different providers, Halo has an outsourced insurance desk that can serve as the licensed agent of record for advisors.

‘By combining advanced technology with human expertise, Halo's annuities marketplace gives Pacific Life a strong, independent distribution channel to grow our relationships with financial advisors,’ Jeremy Couch, director of advisory integration services, Retirement Solutions, at Pacific Life.

The US multi-dealer platform has- also announced a license agreement with DelphX to develop and launch the DelphX structured products platform.

Under the licensing agreement, Halo will construct an automated platform for DelphX that will allow both buyside firms and dealers to negotiate and trade the DelphX-issued Collateralised Put Options (CPOs) and Collateralised Reference Notes (CRNs).

DelphX’s CPO/CRN products are structured as private placement securities targeted at managers who cannot utilise traditional derivatives or swaps.