Since the global financial crisis, regulators have been pushing for structured products to be traded on exchanges for safety reasons. So why, in the German retail market, is the opposite happening, with more trades being done over the counter?

Yankee bond issuance by European names has been setting all-time records in 2012, and in addition to well-known investment-grade names, the market has been showing a tremendous appetite for high-yield offerings.

Pension fund uptake of managed currency funds has been relatively slow, but bank-owned platforms are making access easier for investors looking to allocate foreign exchange exposure to their portfolios.

Best execution for foreign exchange trades, and detailed post-trade analysis, are currently high up on the agenda for central banks and other large participants in the global FX market.

As regulators have scrutinised structured products over the past few years, exchange-traded funds have managed to stay under the radar. However, with the G-20’s Financial Stability Board raising concerns about ETFs, this situation looks set to change.

The fight for market share in the Asian High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) segment is fierce, as private banks and wealth management arms of major banks from Europe and the US position themselves for future growth.

Hong Kong has been the world's biggest initial public offering market for the past two years. Is this a sign of a structural shift in the equity markets, in which companies' capital-raising strategy must include a Hong Kong/China element? And just how much are world leaders London and New York losing out to their Asian rivals?

Banks are using volatility products with transparent structures and pay-offs that are easy to understand to attract a growing number of institutional and individual investors.

In theory, the advent of the Ucits IV Directive should lead to standardised documentation for structured products across the EU. In practice, structurers must still work with diverging national regulatory frameworks.