The 22nd edition of the SRP Europe Conference took place in London on 17-19 March.

SRP Europe 2025 started on Monday with a masterclass delivered by Tim Mortimer, managing director at FVC, Patrick Oberhaensli, CEO of Evolids Finance, and Mayer Brown’s Marcel Horauf (partner) and Alexei Dohl (counsel).

Curiosity and continuous learning have contributed greatly to my personal and professional development - Georg von Wattenwyl, Vontobel

The first day of the conference kicked off with a keynote speech from Financial Times columnist Jason Butler (pictured) followed by global overview of the structured products market by SRP’s own Nikolay Nikolov.

There were seven panel’s on day one, the first of which looked at macro dynamics and emerging trends with defense and European sovereignty very much back on the agenda, according to MSCI’s Stephane Mattatia.

Left to right: Serge Nussbaumer, James Chu, Luca Fornasier, Stephane Mattatia and Marcel Biere

Adoption of actively managed certificates (AMCs) continues to grow in Europe, although most of the demand still comes from Switzerland while the evolution of technology is playing a key role in enabling scalability and growth in the structured products market.

“There has been a shift from sell-side to buy-side as drivers of technology needs, with technology being focused on advisors and end distributors rather than pricing and product manufacturing,” said BBVA’s Daniel Hernandez.

The best in class in the structured products industry gathered on Tuesday evening for the SRP Europe Awards 2025 were Société Générale was announced ‘Best House, Europe’ and Vontobel picked up the award for ‘Best House, Equities’, one of eight awards won by the Swiss investment company. 

BNP Paribas’ Jennifer Scemama-Selander was named ‘rising star’ and Vontobel’s Georg von Wattenwyl was voted ‘SRP Personality of the Year’ by his peers.

“Curiosity and continuous learning have contributed greatly to my personal and professional development,” Von Wattenwyl told SRP in an exclusive interview.

The SRP Europe 2025 Conference ended on Wednesday after three days, with over 350 delegates attending.

Other news

La Banque Postale has partnered with UBS to launch the new Euronext Eurozone 60 PAB Index. Derived from its parent index the Euronext Eurozone 300, its goal is to encourage investment in companies committed to reducing their carbon footprint and aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, according to Olivier Causse, head of structuring and quantitative analysis at La Banque Postale.

More product news was seen in Poland, where Crédit Agricole collaborated with BBVA for the launch of Global Dynamic Index, a four year unit-linked insurance plan tied to the Spanish bank’s proprietary BBVA Systematic Multi Asset Regional Trend 5% EUR Index while in Taiwan, Shin Kong Life distributed the countries first annuity insurance-wrapped structured product linked to a social bond. If held until maturity, the bond, which is issued via BNP Paribas, offers 100% principal protection plus a coupon of 37%.

In Hong Kong SAR, the average daily turnover for listed structured products increased by 58% from the prior month to reach HK$18.2 billion (US$2.3 billion) in February while capital protection products achieved the highest market share by daily average value traded across Euronext exchanges during the month.

FVC’s Mortimer looked at the role of Vega, or sensitivity to the volatility level. From a trader’s perspective, these sensitivities translate into practical consequences because as volatility increases, the trader will generally have to do more rebalancing of the underlying as it moves around more.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan issued an exchange-traded note (ETN) that offers inverse exposure to the S&P VIX short-term futures, a structure not seen in the US since the collapse of Credit Suisse’s VelocityShares play in 2018.

SRP’s latest spotlight focused on the European market which has tripled since 2020 with sales reaching an estimated US$254 billion last year. The yield enhancement product group stood out with a strong 37% YoY sales increase. This relatively more significant growth of higher-risk products reflects the need for the industry to maintain the yield for investors, as the lower interest rates in 2024 has created a less favourable environment for generating competitive returns.

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