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22 February 2025

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ASIC addresses capital guaranteed products

ASIC has released a health check of the Australian market for unlisted retail structured products promoted as having capital protection or a capital guarantee.

Key points:

  • Capital protection or capital guarantee products are complex

  • Complex products can be difficult for investors to understand

  • Those selling complex products need to ensure marketing and advice directed at retail investors are accurate

ASIC found retail investors often have a poor understanding of these complex investments, and products are labelled with confusing or potentially misleading messages about the level of risk investors are exposed to.

Despite being labelled or described with terms such as ‘capital protected’ and ‘conditional capital protected’, some products have knock-out clauses and performance hurdles that may lead to investor losses. The report highlights concerns around:

  • the accuracy and balance of advertising for these products

  • the labelling and description of reverse convertible products as offering ‘conditional capital protection’ or ‘conditional protection’. The value of these investments is usually linked to the worst performing reference share, meaning investors could lose some or all of their money, and

  • certain ‘internally geared’ structured products that are described as entailing a compulsory capital protected loan, where all of the investor’s outlay is at risk of loss if reference assets don’t perform. Where the investment exposure is ‘notional’, there may also be risks for investors who claim tax deductions on their payments.

 

 


 

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