Verbatim's Russell: Investor must be at the heart of structured product design
My wife’s grandmother passed away a few years ago and with her we lost the greatest supplier of baked goods in the north of England, and possibly beyond. Iris’s cakes were the stuff of legend and she had been baking these delights for well over 50 years, so she knew the process well.
However, every now and then she would still go back to her old hand-written recipes, to make sure she was delivering exactly what her customers (a long line of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren) wanted.
Iris came to mind earlier this year as we launched our first structured deposit. Just as she could always produce a flapjack with the right consistency, we concentrate on ensuring any investment solution we create is aligned with the requirements of our advisers and, ultimately, their clients. Helpfully, just as we were working on the design of our first deposit the FCA produced TR15/2, a thematic review of product development and governance of structured products.