This past week saw SG issue a first US equity DLC in Singapore, Credit Suisse trade high numbers on its new big data analytics-linked index, and a new investment platform launch in France.

In a first for the Asian market, Société Générale (SG) has issued four daily leverage certificates (DLCs) linked to the S&P 500 on Singapore Exchange (SGX), nearly five years after it entered the space. Available in long and short versions, the DLCs went live on 4 March, offering a leverage of five times the daily return of the S&P 500.

The bank is looking to cover more US market indices such as the Nasdaq100 and Dow Jones Industrial Average Indices.

From 1 March, China will widen the scope of a pilot programme for wealth management (WM) products aimed bolstering retirement savings to 10 cities and 10 wealth subsidiaries of Chinese banks (理财子), the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission announced on 25 February.

The country will add Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Changchun and Chongqing in addition to the existing four cities (Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu and Qingdao). In the meantime, the issuers will expand from ICBC Wealth, CCB Wealth, CMB Wealth, Everbright Wealth to BOCOM Wealth, BOC Wealth, ABC Wealth, PSBoC Wealth, CIB Wealth and Citic Wealth.  

Investors have shown interest in artificial intelligence and natural language processing - Mike Heraty, Credit Suisse

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) have imposed two penalties on HSBC of HK$6.3m and HK$1m, respectively, for self-reported breaches, according to two announcements on 3 March.

HSBC Securities Brokers (Asia), the liquidity provider of Hong Kong-listed structured products issued by HSBC, erroneously self-matched 370 DW orders on 22 May 2020, after its market making engine restarted after the lunch trading break.

The SFC also highlighted that the fully-owned subsidiary of HSBC made multiple errors in the assignment of the broker-to-client assigned number (BCAN) to its clients, who traded A-shares under northbound trading link of stock connect, known as China Connect Securities (CCS), in the mapping of client identification data (CID) to BCAN and in the tagging of BCAN to its clients’ orders. 

Over in Germany, Allianz Group is setting aside €3.7 billion (US$4.2 billion) to cover expected settlements with US investors and government officials over the collapse of its Structured Alpha Funds, the company said on 17 February.

‘The anticipated settlements are an important step towards a resolution of the various proceedings,’ said Allianz. ‘Discussions with remaining plaintiffs, the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission remain ongoing and the timing and nature of any global or coordinated resolution of these matters is not certain.’

Still in Germany, SRP data shows that sales volumes for primary market products increased by almost 80% YoY in 2021 while issuance was also up by 25%. Some 17,730 structured products targeted at the primary market were issued in Germany in 2021 – a 25% increase from the previous year (2020: 14,161 products).

Sales volumes, at an estimated €13.4 billion – up 77% year-on-year (YoY) – reached their highest levels since 2018, when €13.8 billion was collected from 8,787 products.  

Credit Suisse has traded more than US$1 billion in notional in derivatives linked to the Credit Suisse RavenPack Artificial Intelligence Index as of 31 December 2021.

The index was launched in 2017 as a result of a collaboration between Credit Suisse and RavenPack to leverage the power of big data analytics to make sector allocation decisions in a tradable and systematic way within an index.

“Investors have shown interest in artificial intelligence and natural language processing,” Mike Heraty, head of institutional solutions at Credit Suisse, told SRP. “We were not surprised that the index reached this notional milestone because it's a unique thematic and was thoughtfully constructed.”

The former team running French structured products specialist boutique HPC IP has reunited to launch Aydo, a new investment platform in France. Pierre-Yves Breton, Jordan Sfez and Arthur Teixeira, the three founding members are seeking to leverage 13 years of collaboration and product knowledge “to break down barriers between the financial markets and non-listed investments”.

“Starting a business is always an adventure and something you want to do with people you trust,” says Arthur Teixeira, founder and managing partner at Aydo. “That’s probably the most precious asset of all. For us it was a natural process since we have been collaborating for 13 years and have an extremely smooth and efficient decision-making process.”

Image: Istock.