As we approach year end, we look at the most featured payoff types of structured products issued year-to-date (YTD) across the Asia Pacific (Apac) market.

Autocall

The autocall topped the league table as the most widely used payoff structure in Apac this year, with the feature embedded in 38,578 newly-issued products in 2023 YTD, up by a quarter compared with the prior year period, according to SRP data.

Of the 38,578 autocall products that are used on their own or in combination with barrier reverse convertible, reverse convertible, accrual, or range profiles, Taiwan stood out in the region with 18,084 products issued this year - these mostly linked to a shared basket of stocks, including the shares of Tesla (1,920 products), NVIDIA (1,847), and Advanced Micro Devices (1,832).

Taiwan grew faster in this space than South Korea and Hong Kong SAR, last year’s top two most active autocall issuance markets in the region, respectively. This YTD, some 10,096 autocall products at US$20.9 billion appeared in the Korean market, up in volume from the US$19.3 billion seen in 2022. Hong Kong SAR stayed steady with 9,786 autocall products issued YTD.

Digital

Digital structures – as a single structure and in combination with other profiles – took the second spot in the Apac payoff league table for 2023 with 21,191 products issued with such a payoff across asset classes YTD, led by FX rates (17,113) including popular underlying assets the AUD/USD pair, GBP/USD pair, and XAU/USD pair.

The combination of digital and dual currency payoffs finishes the year strongly, with product issuance across Apac gaining over 21% YoY to 13,680 products. These are predominantly used in structured deposits.

Reverse convertible

Next in line is the reverse convertible payoff structure, with 19,039 products registered in the SRP database. As a single structure it was deployed in 17,267 products YTD.

The combination of knockout, reverse convertible and worst of option, which raised an estimated US$10 billion across 19,003 products issued in 2023 YTD, also remained steady compared with the prior year period. With these payoffs, Thailand made up the majority with 17,198 structured notes issuance, while 1,762 and 43 products were seen in Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan, respectively.

Range

The range payoff structure remained popular in Hong Kong SAR and China as the issuance amounted to 4,795 and 2,887 products in these markets, respectively. The Hong Kong SAR figure reflects a 61% YoY growth, while China only saw a slight increase.

In Japan, range structures were deployed via 12 FX-linked flow deposits, which were issued and distributed by Mizuho Bank, flat from the prior year.

India appeared as the new joiner of the range space this year, with all three products issued in 2023 all linked to the country’s government bond.

Leverage long/short with stop loss

The Hong Kong market saw a drop in leverage long with stop loss-pegged product issuance as it sat around 12,013 products YTD, representing a 39% YoY drop.

Of these, 8,037 amounted to callable bull/bear contracts (CBBCs), while the remaining were warrants. All of them are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Nearly one-third of these leveraged products are tied to the Hang Seng Index. At the same time, tech and retail stocks such as Tencent Holdings, Alibaba (H Shares), and Meituan Dianping remain popular underlyings.

Meanwhile, leverage short with stop loss payoff-pegged product issuance also decreased by 30% YoY to 6,945 products issued YTD, which comprised 5,978 CBBCs and 967 warrants.