Given this year's increase in volatility and reduced certainty across markets, with multiple risks adding complexity to asset allocation decisions, it may be reasonable to expect wealth managers to increase their usage of structured product over the coming months and beyond.
But as an industry, we should acknowledge that we could do more to help them, working to demonstrate how the asset class can benefit their clients, while providing them with the tools they need to incorporate them into portfolios in an expedited fashion with minimal fuss.
Below are three steps we think are needed to help wealth managers understand and use structured products more and with greater efficiently.
Demonstrate how things have changed
Structured products have historically been regarded as more complicated than traditional open-ended mutual funds, and there is little doubt that their variability and customisable nature can be both a strength and a weakness.
Structured products offer targeted exposure to a large number of underlying securities, but the ability to match clients to, say, individual stocks or indices with varying levels of capital protection, can appear confusing to the uninitiated.
Structured products in Q2: Positive returns in volatile market
Part of the problem is that structured products have long had a reputation as being ‘black boxes'; investments in which the client is somewhat in the dark as to the mechanics and workings of the product.
This is no longer the case, with platforms able to illustrate structures with full transparency. Wealth managers today can see instantly how a return or payoff would change as a result of applying different levels of capital protection and choose which is best for their client according to what they expect from markets. That also helps them understand where a product could fit into a wider portfolio and how it would impact its overall risk profile.
In a sector that used to see wealth managers track structured products on manual Excel spreadsheets - not the fastest, easiest or most client-friendly way of working - this has been a big step forward.
Provide better access
Even if investors appreciate the benefits of structured products, it can be difficult for wealth managers to access them. Without links to private banks' structured products trading desks, or direct links to issuers, wealth managers may find that incorporating structures into portfolios for clients takes up significant time and effort, which could be better placed working with clients to better understand their needs and financial goals.
Technology platforms can provide a way for wealth managers to not only model different structures easily and efficiently, but also trade them without the traditional friction and inefficiencies familiar to those who have used them in the past.
Explain where they can fit into portfolios
Once wealth managers have selected or created an appropriate product with their client, they may still need to decide whether it will work as a complement to a portfolio or replace part of an existing allocation within it.
Depending on the product, it may be that it can replace an income-producing investment within the credit basket; something that could make perfect sense as structured products can offer a low credit risk as well as income within a capital-protected structure. They can also instead act as a diversifier in the equities basket to boost returns when equities may be below average, or provide a replacement for some investments in the alternatives basket where returns can be highly variable without necessarily offering better liquidity or reduced equity risk.
As is often the case, education is key - and the industry as a whole needs to do a better job of explaining how it has changed and what it offers today to wealth managers and their clients.
David Wood is managing director of Luma's International Business