A capital protection 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.
By categorization, capital protection products take the form of capped products (which set a maximum return) and uncapped products (without a maximum return). In other words, a variety of such products does exist depending on the range of return conditions and other add-on features. Coupon products include coupon multi (from convergence/ divergence extreme, with products such as those with performance spread, multi-range, maxi-spread, to no downside lower mid-range such as multi-coupon, binary up, best coupon, to all up capped upper mid-range such as local cap, yield enhancement, and all the way up to all up uncapped such as maxi coupon, best climber). Other types with add-on features include autocallables and accrual products.
These products are a special type of structured retail products that guarantee a minimum amount, or all, of the invested capital at maturity. They were introduced as the earliest type of structured products and are commonplace with risk averse investors, but nevertheless have lost traction in the market over time.
In short, capital protection products are classified as per the following:
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