After the Easter break, SRP looks back on quite a number of people moves across the globe, and cryptos moving into structured products (and vice versa).

Monex has restructured its treasury and markets division which houses the derivatives and structured products teams following the passing of Javier Alvarado due to Covid-19. Alvarado had been CEO of Monex Casa de Bolsa and head of treasury and markets at Monex Financial Group since 2010. Tomás Noriega, ex-head of assets and liabilities management (ALM), has been tapped head of treasury and markets, while Pedro Arroyo has been promoted to Noriega’s previous position from head of derivatives trading.

Heading north to Canada, Frederic Tremblay has been promoted to managing director, head of investment solutions at Desjardins having served nearly 20 years at the Quebec-headquartered firm. Tremblay is now in charge of the management and development of structured products, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, guaranteed investment funds, annuities and private funds. In addition, he acts as chief operating officer at Desjardins Investments. In the new role, Tremblay reports to Guy Cormier, president and CEO of Desjardins Investments.

Hashdex, a crypto-focused asset manager, has appointed Laurent Kssis as managing director and head of Europe. Kssis will oversee European expansion while the firm continues to hire new members across London, Zurich, Paris, and Lisbon. He joins from Swiss issuer 21Shares with his last role as managing director and global head of ETPs where he listed more than 25 crypto ETPs across several European regulated exchanges.

The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) has published new rules on the listing, trading and liquidity providing of structured warrants and has targeted Q3 22 for the debut launch. The new products will ‘increase investment alternatives for investors in the Indonesian capital market’ and ‘will increase the level of transaction liquidity and market deepening,’ according to the bourse.

Effective from 11 April, the new guidelines comprise Rule Number I-P concerning listing of structured warrants, Rule II-P concerning trading of structured warrants and Rule III-P concerning liquidity provider requirements of structured warrants on the IDX.

The UK structured product market has had a strong start to 2022 continuing the pattern of increased issuance and sales volumes that has been witnessed in the past two years. The numbers suggest that the market is on track to exceed the previous highs of 2017 and 2018. These were reached before the twin effects of Priips and Covid impacted product issuance. In the case of PRIIPs it was the accompanying regulatory burden. Covid interrupted normal market operations and bank ability and appetite for new business.

Structured Retail Products (SRP) and FVC are collaborating in bringing a new structured product lifecycle and portfolio management application named StructrPro to the US market which will be fully launched by the end of April 2022. This service will allow users to track and analyse products from the universe of over 45,000 open or recent products in the US market covered by SRP.

On the product side, BCP Asset Management distributed issue five of its European Defensive ESG Kick-Out Bond in Ireland. The 10-year autocall is linked to the Solys Quadrant Europe Fund, which was launched on 25 August 2021 and is actively managed by SG29 Haussmann. The underlying fund provides exposure to a portfolio of 75 European companies that operate in four mega trends: environmental transition, digitalisation, new economy and demographic trends. The autocall barrier is at 100% from the end of year one until the end of year five when it drops to 85% until the end of the investment term. The nominal capital will be returned at maturity provided that the fund has not fallen by more than 50%. The product is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange. It is issued on the paper of SG Issuer while Société Générale acts as the guarantor. There is a total fee of five percent, and the minimum investment is €20,000.

Crypto exchange Kraken is planning to roll out structured products in its platform to provide a staking yield for institutional investors. Kraken’s plan to launch structured products has been in the works for some time and was triggered following the acquisition last year of Staked, a staking company operating in the crypto market. The firm wants to combine the trading services offered by its crypto exchange platform and the staking power of the new firm to offer more services to institutional investors.

Image: Pixabay.