Asian banks continue their hiring sprees, while investment platforms fundraise for growth.
Swiss bank Vontobel, which has been in the news a fair amount in past months for its new hire announcements. Its distribution efforts to grow its certificates and leveraged products business in the HK market are now embedded in its digital investing division. Joe Tsz Kin Yip has joined Vontobel Bank as head of financial products public distribution in Hong Kong SAR.
Yip oversees a team responsible for formulating and executing strategies on product issuance, liquidity monitoring, online and offline marketing, client acquisition and media engagement to market the bank’s derivatives warrants and callable bull/bear contracts. He joins from Nikko Asset Management where he was an ETF business development specialist tasked with growing the firm’s ETF business in North Asia and ensuring efficient trading of two Hong Kong-listed ETFs both on exchange and OTC.
Barclays has appointed Angela Liu as country CEO, China, to strengthen its existing cross-border corporate and investment bank platform in China as part of the expansion of its Asia Pacific franchise. Based in Hong Kong SAR, Liu will report to Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays, Asia Pacific. Liu will be responsible for strengthening the bank’s cross-border CIB platform.
Citi has increased its issuance of structured products in Q3 21 despite fall in market certificate of deposit sales. The new issuance rose from 771 to 1,033 in Q3 21 year-on-year (YoY), leading to a notional amount of US$3.36 billion, up 54.7% YoY, SRP data shows.
On a quarterly basis, the bank’s issuance increased by 8.7% while the sales notional was up four percent. Sales of structured deposits were testimonial with just four certificates of deposits launched at US$6.2m, a plunge from US$55.3m in Q2 21, according to the data.
The bank also retrieved an old structure - a floating rate note, which makes coupon payments based on a reference rate, was issued in September. This payoff was last seen on a product issued by Citi in February 2019, according to SRP data.
For its part, J.P. Morgan has sold US$3 billion worth of structured products in its domestic market during Q3 2021. It posted a firmwide net revenue of US$29.6 billion for the third quarter of 2021, up one percent from the prior year quarter. In corporate & investment banking, net income was US$5.6 billion, up 29%, with revenue of US$12.4 billion, seven percent higher.
SCB Securities, the subsidiary of Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has issued THB2.1 billion (US$62m) of notional of short-term structured notes for high-net-worth investors in H1 21, which represents a fourfold increase year-on-year (YoY). Despite having a small market share, the figure represented a growth of 31.7%, or THB506m, from the previous peak seen in H2 19, according to SCB Securities’ financial statements. These equity-linked notes carried an interest rate of 0.08% to 16% with a tenor of less than 270 days.
Multi-issuer platforms continue to gain traction across markets as well as support from independent investors as suggested by the latest funding rounds. Halo has announced a collective investment backed by Owl Capital which includes the Mubadala-backed US$1 billion fund managed by Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners, along with existing investors Allianz Life Ventures and William Blair.
Israeli fintech startup Futora has successfully completed a US$6m fundraising round. The firm launched by the founders of Modelity Technologies. The round included TAU Ventures, Tel-Aviv University’s investment fund, North First Ventures, J-Ventures from Silicon Valley, and Sergio Fogel, a fintech entrepreneur working in Israel and Uruguay. The funds raised will support ongoing product development and in building the sales processes in Europe and the US. Futora, originally called Modelity Marketplace, was a structured products platform within Modelity Technologies and later established itself as an independent company. The new fintech was founded in 2020 by Asaf Seri and Ayal Leibowitz, who set up the company after selling Modelity Technologies, to German company LPA.
Crédit Agricole CIB (CACIB) has partnered with MSCI to launch a benchmark aligned with the Paris Agreement which will serve as the basis for new financial solutions targeted at the structured products market. The new range of products, fully eligible for the European Paris-Aligned Benchmark label, will track the performance of the MSCI Euro Climate Select 50 Paris Aligned 5% Decrement Index, which is 99% correlated with the Eurostoxx 50 index. The new products are aimed at investors seeking to make an effective contribution to decarbonising their investments.