In the week that SRP held its Europe event, some of the major global banks were making headlines.
Alessandro Ricci made headlines of his own when he won the SRP Europe 2022’s personality of the year awards.
BNP Paribas launched last week in Italy 15 new Fast Coupon certificates, a new range of short-term listed products to optimise sideways or moderately bearish market trends. This is the latest addition to the French bank’s listed products offering which includes bonus cap, top bonus, turbo/turbo unlimited, mini futures and covered warrants.
Benoit Roquant, global head of exchange traded solutions at BNP Paribas, told SRP that all players in the structured products listed space “are profiting from the surge in retail investing since the Covid crisis”.
For BNP Paribas ETP leverage business, 2021 was an “all time high record year in terms of client activity” – the French bank also extended the range of products on US underlyings “to meet the very strong demand we see notably on US technology firms”.
BNP Paribas issued more than 170,000 leverage products on 450 US underlyings in 2021 which represents almost half of the overall issuance of leverage products in Europe last year, according to SRP data.
The co-heads of Citi’s wealth management’s (Citi Global Wealth) digital asset group, Alex Kriete and Greg Girasole have parted ways with US bank to start a new crypto venture.
Kriete, who was appointed to his crypto role in July 2021 had spent 11 years at Citi on a number of roles including co-head of digital assets, alongside Greg Girasole. Both made the announcement via their LinkedIn pages, stating they have decided to take on a new venture in the digital space. The former Citi bankers also said he would be sharing more details on their new venture in the coming weeks following an end of employment process.
Girasole was senior vice president, portfolio manager. He joined Citi in 2018 from J.P. Morgan where he was a fiduciary investment analyst.
BNP Paribas Asset Management has appointed Nadia Grant as head of global equities. Based in London, Grant will report to Guy Davies, CIO, fundamental active equities. In her new role, Grant will be responsible for BNPP AM’s global equity team based in London and Paris. Her career spans 22 years and she joins from Capital Group, where she was a portfolio manager within the Capital Solutions Group responsible for global multi-asset solutions.
Standard Chartered’s wealth management income has increased 12% to ‘a record US$2.2 billion’ in 2021 year-on-year (YoY) driven by strong sales of funds, structured notes and wealth lending. The UK bank reported ‘sustained growth in client numbers and double-digit growth in assets under management (AuM)’. Additionally, bancassurance income was up nine percent.
The figures translated to 15.1% of the total operating income following financial markets, retail products and transaction banking, which posted US$4.9 billion, US$3.4 billion and US$2.6 billion in income in 2021, respectively.
Barclays’ structured products sales volume in the US market reached US$12.71 billion while the issuance climbed to 2,549 from 2,070 in 2021, SRP data shows.
The UK bank lost its place to Goldman Sachs which issued 3,569 structured products sold at US$12.87 billion taking the top on the SRP league table and Morgan Stanley, which collected US$12.85 billion in 2021. Barclays started 2021 with a strong momentum in its sales volume which amounted to US$3.4 billion and US$3.7 billion in Q1 and Q2, respectively. The slowdown materialised in the second half of the year with the volume decreasing to US$2.7 billion in Q3 and Q4.
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