European banks post encouraging figures for structured product activity, while Singaporean financial institutions bank on product innovation.

As usual, let’s start with key people moves. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has appointed an ex-managing director from global markets at Goldman Sachs to a newly-created role to bolster structured products. Matthew Cheong has joined as managing director, head of structured products and platform business development at HKEX.

He reports to Wilfred Yiu, who added to his portfolio of responsibilities the role of co-chief operating officer alongside Bonnie Y Chan at the end of January, in addition to his responsibilities over HKEX’s cash, derivatives, clearing and depository businesses as head of equities.

This will be our first minimum redemption of principal-at-maturity notes linked to an in-house fund - Rohit Jaisingh, DBS Private Bank

Charlene Low has been appointed head of Asia Pacific for Qontigo. Low replaces former head of Apac Rick Chau, who has left the company. Low will report to Marc Dorfman, senior managing director, global head of sales, Qontigo. In her new role, Low will lead the strategic development of Qontigo’s footprint in the Apac region and support the index provider’s key regional presence to provide round-the-clock support to its global client base.

In Europe, French financial services firm Kepler Cheuvreux has appointed Jean-Pierre Ané as managing director, deputy group general manager, head of business development. In his new role, Ané will be responsible for leveraging the group’s strengths to develop new businesses and realise new synergies to reinforce the group’s growth momentum and make it stronger in the long term.

On the product side of things, DBS Private Bank is gearing up to launch its first ever minimum redemption of principal-at-maturity notes linked to an in-house fund. With an investment duration of two or three years, the notes will track the performance of the DBS CIO Barbell Income Fund, which was launched in February 2021.

“We’re speaking to a few hedge providers,” Rohit Jaisingh, managing director, head of capital market products at DBS Bank told SRP. “This will be our first minimum redemption of principal-at-maturity notes linked to an in-house fund. It articulates our barbell approach to investing – investing in high growth secular winners and high dividend yielding stocks with a focus on income-generation.”

Another Singaporean bank, United Overseas Bank (UOB), is working on a new suite of payoffs for its retail structured products after the business ended 2022 with stable traded notional despite the equity market correction. One of the payoffs developed by the bank is a vanilla ‘trading discipline strategy’ that corresponds with the bank’s Q1 investment theme ‘get paid while you wait’.

“It allows investors to earn an income on the principal, which is systemically unlocked and participates as the market corrects,” John Lau, head of wealth management, treasury at UOB, told SRP. “It’s a dollar cost averaging plus income strategy and was launched in late January.”

Leonteq has reported a total operating income of CHF456.4m (US$495.7m) for 2022 – up nine percent year-on-year (YoY). The number of clients entering transactions in 2022 was roughly the same as in the prior year. Total turnover, at CHF23.1 billion, was down 20% YoY. Turnover generated with Leonteq’s own issued products remained relatively stable at CHF13.6 billion (2021: CHF14.7 billion), while turnover generated with Leonteq’s historic platform partners including EFG and Raiffeisen decreased to CHF6.4 billion in 2022 from CHF10.4 billion in 2021. Turnover generated with new partners, including all white-labelling and third-party issuers also fell to CHF3.1 billion (2021: 3.8 billion).  

For its part, Société Générale posted revenues of €28.1 billion (US$30.1 billion) for 2022 – an all-time record and increase of 9.3% compared to the previous year. For the fourth quarter, the group reported revenues of €6.9 billion, up 5.9% year-on-year (YoY).

The global markets business, which houses the group’s structured products activities, had a record year, as it benefited from robust commercial activity in a durably volatile environment, particularly regarding interest rates. Revenues stood at €5.9 billion, up 17.1% compared to full year 2021. In Q4 2022, revenues were €1.2 billion, up 11.2% versus Q4 2021. The equity activity enjoyed its best-ever year in 2022, registering revenues of €3.3 billion, up 4.7% YoY.

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