The Royal Bank of Scotland is launching a managed futures index in tandem with Victor Sperandeo, CEO of Alpha Financial Technologies.
The Trader Vic Index (Tvi) is a long/short index composed of a diversified basket of 24 futures contracts spread across three asset classes: physical commodities, global currencies and US interest rates.
Sperandeo has been touring Asia in the last couple of days, and the feedback has been positive in the retail distributor community, said the bank.
"Working with such a seasoned money manager like Trader Vic reaffirms RBS's ability to tap innovative investment ideas for our clients. As with any investment objective, the strategy is to deliver consistent, robust returns, and Tvi is clearly an option for investors in Asia," said Matthew Wong, head of equity derivatives and pip sales, Asia.
RBS said the product is similar to managed futures products run by Commodity Trading Advisers, offering daily liquidity, transparency and vastly reduced fees. Based on the back-testing results since July 1990, Tvi delivered a 13.1% annualised return, outperforming MSCI World Index's 5%, with a significantly lower volatility of 7.5%.
The firm is expecting to price capital-protected access to the strategy, and has a number of wrappers available.