Latest: new biblically responsible structured notes launched, Barnabas involved

Inspire Insight, a sister company of ‘biblically responsible’ investing firm Inspire Investing, has partnered with Barnabas Capital to launch the world's first biblically responsible structured notes.

The new Inspire Faith Notes use the Inspire Impact Score approach to biblically responsible investing by licensing the top 10 holdings of the Inspire 100 index as the notes' underlying basket of securities.

The launch of these notes comes from the overwhelming demand from the faith-based community - Robert Netzly, Inspire

The Inspire Impact Score methodology is a rules-based scoring system that identifies some of the world's most ‘biblically aligned companies to invest in’. By applying a faith-based perspective, this scoring system seeks out businesses that are a blessing to their customers and communities, workforce, and the world while excluding those that operate at odds with biblical values.

‘The launch of these notes comes from the overwhelming demand from the faith-based community,’ said Robert Netzly (pictured), CEO of Inspire, adding that the new notes bring the faith-based investing movement to the structured note marketplace, ‘providing investors an additional option to help them achieve their investment goals while staying true to their faith’.

Barnabas Capital, a third-party distributor of investment and insurance products will offer the new notes via financial professionals and advisors.

Cirdan’s digital bank expands ‘restricted’ structured deposit offering

Smart Bank - the digital investment bank of the Cirdan Group – has expanded its offer of restricted structured deposit accounts with the launch of two new products at five and 10 years at mixed rates, which respectively provide a fixed at 5% return for the first two years and for the first four years, respectively.

The two new structured deposits which are linked to the EUR CMS 30 years and EUR CMS 5 years will pay annually three times the differential if positive between the two underlying reference indices - with a minimum amount of zero. At maturity, investors will receive 100% of the nominal value invested.

The new accounts – the five-year accounts being collected until 21 June and the 10-year accounts being collected until 28 June – respond to investors' need to adopt a defensive positioning, according to Antonio De Negri (right), CEO of Smart Bank.

‘Given the excellent reception recorded by our Smart Bank 5X5 deposit account, which closed the funding phase in recent weeks, we have decided to expand our offer of structured deposits with two solutions that we believe can best meet the defensive needs of Italian customers, in light of the probable easing of interest rates in the near future,’ he said.

‘In fact, we believe that innovation is not a value in itself, but fully becomes so when it responds to people's needs. This awareness is guiding our action on the Italian market.’

Bloomberg debuts commodity carbon play, adds funds data solutions service

Bloomberg has announced the launch of a new benchmark in its commodities index offering with the launch of the Bloomberg Commodity (BCOM) Carbon Tilted Index, designed to provide a reduced carbon profile while maintaining exposure to a diversified universe of physical commodities.

‘There is a growing want to support the transition to a low-carbon economy while remaining aligned with their investment goals across all asset-classes,’ said Allison Stone, head of multi-asset product, Bloomberg Index Services Limited.

‘This index has been constructed using an innovative methodology that speaks to priorities of sustainability and diversification, while still providing the liquidity that commodities investors commonly seek.’

The index is based on a ‘novel approach’ to measuring carbon emissions, resulting in overweighting commodities with a lower carbon footprint while minimising tracking error to Bloomberg’s flagship BCOM parent index.

The approach was developed through collaboration between Bloomberg’s index product and quantitative research teams - the dual mandate of under-weighting the most greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) intensive commodities while minimising tracking error is achieved by incorporating data-driven assessments of GHG emissions across the relevant parts of the life cycle of the commodity markets represented in the index, while still adhering to a composition that preserves BCOM sector weights.

Bloomberg has also launched a Funds Data Solution service covering over 135,000 unique funds and 12,000 exchange-traded products (ETPs) available as foundational data, holdings, corporate actions, ESG, risk, and regulatory data products.

The new service offers a global universe of funds including mutual funds, fund of funds, closed/open-end funds, unit trusts and more as well as ETPs including ETFs, ETCs, and ETNs.

Users can access reference and pricing data as well as look through to underlying portfolio holdings to inform portfolio construction, benchmarking, rebalancing, tracking risk and positions, trading, and order workflow processes.

Leonteq expands ETPs+ range with FuW model portfolios

Leonteq has launched three new FuW-Risk-Portfolio, FuW-Value Portfolio and FuW Eco Portfolio.

Leonteq and Finanz und Wirtschaft (FuW) are further expanding their collaboration with three new ETPs of its ETPs+ range replicating FuW model portfolios - FuW Risk Portfolio Index NTR, FuW Value Portfolio Index NTR and FuW Eco Portfolio Index NTR.

The FuW Risk Portfolio, launched in 1995, primarily focuses on undervalued Swiss equities (large, mid and small caps) with a higher degree of risk and a short to medium investment horizon.

The FuW Value Portfolio, launched in 2008, is an international equity portfolio focusing on both European and North American markets. The model portfolio components are chosen from all sectors, replicating investments in global value stocks with medium to long investment horizon.

The FuW Eco Portfolio, launched in 2020, includes Swiss, European and US companies that pursue an environmentally sustainable strategy, particularly focused on carbon emission reduction.

‘These new ETPs+ will allow investors to gain exposure to different investment themes with short, medium and long investment horizons and to an attractive, yet well differentiated, offering,’ said Alessandro Ricci (above-right), head investment solutions of Leonteq.

The ETPs+ are listed on SIX Swiss Exchange AG and are available to institutional and retail investors in Switzerland.

ECB consults on counterparty credit risk governance and management

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a public consultation on its report on ‘Sound practices in counterparty credit risk governance and management’.

The report summarises the results of the targeted review performed in the second half of 2022 on how banks govern and manage counterparty credit risk (CCR). It highlights the good practices observed in the market and points to areas where improvement is needed.

CCR was identified as a supervisory priority for 2022-24, as banks had been increasingly offering capital market services to riskier, leveraged and less transparent counterparties, particularly non-bank financial institutions, incentivised by the search for yields in the then low-interest rate environment.

In 2023, ECB Banking Supervision conducted off-site follow-up activities at 23 banks active in derivatives and securities financing transactions with non-banking counterparties. In some cases, the ECB also carried out on-site inspections.

The review found that, despite some progress in how banks measure and manage CCR, there is still room for improvement in areas such as customer due diligence, the definition of risk appetite, default management processes and stress testing frameworks.

Supervisors’ expectations cover, among other dimensions, banks’ capacity to obtain information from non-bank counterparties, regularly stress test their counterparty credit risk exposures and assess their counterparties’ vulnerabilities under tail risk scenarios.

The good practices described in the report go beyond mere compliance with regulatory requirements and should be considered when banks design their approach to CCR.

The consultation on the report ends on 14 July 2023. Click in the link to read the EC counterparty credit risk governance report.