UK structured product association launches
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A number of UK retail structured product providers have banded together to form a new UK structured products association.
Last week Money Marketing reported that a number of banks were working towards the launch of an association within weeks.
The association’s key objective is to inform and educate the investment community by offering independent commentary on the broad range of issues involving structured products and the role of structured products in an appropriately diversified investment portfolio.
The launch membership includes active providers and distributors in the structured product market such as Citi, Credit Suisse, Legal & General, Morgan Stanley, Prudential, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Skandia.
The association is also creating a committee for independent plan managers and distributors to advise on matters concerning specific parts of the structured products industry. The committee will include Gilliat Financial Solutions, Jubilee Financial Products, Meteor Asset Management and Walker Crips Structured Investments.
Industry players such as Barclays, Investec and Blue Sky Asset Management are noticeably absent from the list.
Blue Sky Asset Management chief executive Chris Taylor says the firm is wholly supportive of the UK structured product industry having an association and welcomes the progress made.
But he says: “Before we can commit our involvement, however, we need to see more formal and full detail for the association, which has not been available to us at this stage. We envisage participating and contributing, if it is on a fully inclusive industry association basis.”
The association will be working closely with other organisations, such as the Association of Independent Financial Advisers and the European Structured Investment Product Association.
It joins the seven-year-old global Structured Products Association (SPA) which announced earlier this week that it had surpassed its goal of 1,000 members in the UK as of the end of the third quarter 2009. It is now plans to open an office for its UK to coordinate its efforts in January 2010.
Lowes Financial Management managing director and StructuredProductReview.com founder Ian Lowes says: “This is long overdue. Given the bashing the sector has had this year, it could be argued that the launch is somewhat late, but better late than never. Any initiative to help educate and inform is very welcome and I’m sure that even the most vociferous, anti-structured products pundits will agree that the formation of the UKSPA is a positive step for the financial advice sector generally.”
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