Deutsche awarded for structured investment products

Deutsche Bank was voted the world’s Most Innovative Provider of Structured Investment Products (for retail investors) by The Banker magazine in their annual awards announced earlier this week.

In its write-up on the award, The Banker said that there had been a major shift in retail investor appetites over the past year with safe, liquid products with low counterparty credit risk such as UCITSIII funds and exchange traded funds coming back into vogue.

Reinhard Bellet, Global Head of db-X, the Global Markets business that designs structured investment products, gave an interview to The Banker, extracts of which were published in the write-up.

Bellet said that one of the keys to Deutsche Bank’s success this year was the care it took to ensure that the products sold to retail investors were appropriate.

"These products are sophisticated and are not always easy to understand for retail investors," he explained. "We were very careful to choose intermediaries that were giving the proper advice to the end client. We have to make sure that these products are not sold directly to retail investors without any additional advice."

The Banker singled out the Commodity Harvest Fund launched by Deutsche Bank for particular mention. This is the first ever market-neutral commodity investment fund, which enables investors to generate positive returns in both bull and bear markets.

Bellet said that demand for products linked to alternative asset classes was growing. "The opportunities in commodities and foreign exchange are now huge. More and more asset managers and private bankers are using these products in their asset allocation strategies."

Deutsche Bank's success in The Banker awards also saw it named Most Innovative FX House and Most Innovative FX Team (in any asset class).