A capital protected product is a structured product that does provide full, or at least partial, capital protection. The holder is guaranteed that the initial investment (capital) will be received back at maturity. The full or partial capital protection is accompanied with equity-linked performance and a variable degree of leverage. Capital protection products guarantee that all or a fraction of the investment or principal amount (usually but not necessarily 100%) will be returned to the investor at maturity, in all cases (no matter what) or unless a predefined event (e.g., default) occurs.

Capital protection is an investment strategy that combines protection with an element of equity performance that incentivizes investors to remain invested when markets decline and take advantage of market recoveries.

The types of capital protected products vary from market to another depending on applicable structures, with the development of new products over time, and in the midst of the ebb or tide of market demand. The most essential examples of such products include:

• A hybrid structure (hybrid instrument) involving a debt instrument (fixed-income instrument) and an equity element embedded with a call option. For example, a bond and callable equity structure where the bond component represents a safe or protected asset (such as a term deposit account or fixed interest bond which provides the protected amount at maturity, while the equity component is an equity based investment such as a call option (equity call option) or futures contract (equity futures) which provides the payoffs over and above the protected or guaranteed amount.
• A put option insurance where an investor purchases a put option which that guarantees the receipt of the protected amount if the market value of the investment drops below the protected level.
• Constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI) which involves an automatically adjusted investment whereby investors move out of equities and into safer investments or  forms of assets (e.g., cash as the market falls), and back in to equities when it advances, and so on and so forth.

In terms of specific products, the main types of capital protected products are: capital protected bonds, capital protected notes (principal protected notes, PPNs), capital protected deposits, and virtually any financial product that involves a certain capital protection mechanism.