A new gender equality index, conference and awards coverage, market reviews, people moves, and more from our newsroom.

Equileap renewed its partnership with Solactive to launch the Solactive Equileap Emerging Markets Gender Equality Index.

Investing in companies with a gender lens is not only good for the world but also good for the wallet - Diana van Maasdijk, Equileap

The index tracks firms from emerging markets with a strong performance in relation to gender equality and its constituents are evaluated by Equileap, with the company considering factors such as the percentage of women on the board; equality of compensation and work-life balance policies; gender pay gap; and anti-sexual harassment policies.

Investing in companies with a gender lens is not only good for the world but also good for the wallet, Diana van Maasdijk, CEO at Equileap, told SRP.

Our coverage of SRP China 2024 focused on macro trends and market dynamics, with domestic investors seeking the same yield as in overseas markets, despite the low interest rate environment, while in the aftermath of SRP Europe 2024, SIX Swiss Exchange’s André Buck claimed that Switzerland is one of the most innovative markets for financial products. SIX was voted ‘Best Structured Product and Derivatives Exchange’ at the SRP Europe 2024 Awards in London on 19 March.

Barclays picked up three awards at the same event, including ‘Best House, Equities, Europe’, ‘Best House, UK & Ireland’, as well as the ‘Most Innovative Product’.  “For us [these awards] are a recognition of our efforts to stay close to clients and meet their needs,” the bank’s head of equities structuring Emea, Arnaud Heckenroth said.

The UK bank appointed Isabelle Millat as head of sustainable finance for global markets and Barclays Europe. Based in Paris, she will join the Barclays Europe executive committee and the sustainable finance management team. Millat joins from Société Générale where she held several senior positions, most recently as head of sustainability for global markets.

In further people news, we reported on the departure of Arnaud Gauthey, head of structured products for Southeast Asia at HSBC Global Private Banking, who had been with the UK bank since 2019.

Barbara Mullaney, the former managing director and global head of  private client solutions at Citi in New York, joined Seda Experts, a US firm providing financial expert witness services, while FTSE Russell announced the appointments of Gerald Toledano as global head of custom index solutions and Philippe Jacson as head of sell-side for index investment group in Apac, based in Dubai.

Back in Switzerland, BBVA became the latest member of the Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA), which represents 95% of the Swiss structured products market. The SSPA now has 47 members from financial entities across the entire structured products value chain including issuers, trading and buy-side platforms, intermediaries, and associations.

SRP published market reviews for South Korea and Poland. The former focused on losses from HSCEI-linked ELS this year, which could reach US$4.4 billion if the index remains at the current level, the Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) estimated, while in Poland, structured products increasingly are competing with bank deposits and other savings products, due to their capital protection feature, guaranteed coupons, and their potential for high additional coupons.

Q1 2024 earnings were reviewed from Goldman Sachs, who achieved record sales of US$4.2 billion from 1,157 products in the quarter, and J.P. Morgan, which traded US$5.3 billion worth of SEC-registered structured notes in the period.

In an interview with SRP, J.P. Morgan’s global head of equities digital markets, Gurps Kharaud, said the US bank has seen a significant increase in structured products transactions going through its core EVO platform infrastructure: in Asia almost 99% of J.P. Morgan's structured product trades are transacted via its SI 360 platform with a 90/60% split in Europe and US, respectively.

“We have created a platform to serve our clients where they want to be and tailored to their requirements,” he said.

In Hong Kong SAR, a thematic review carried out by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) highlighted shortcomings and risk factors in due diligence assessment methodologies for non-exchange traded investment products.

The financial regulators noted that a range of factors were not considered in some cases, including the pay-out and characteristics of leveraged structured forward contracts, credit events relating to the product issuers, heightened market and industry risks, or adverse economic and political environments.

Image: Syahrir/Adobe Stock.

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