Cirdan’s digital bank expands ‘restricted’ structured deposit offering

Smart Bank - the digital investment bank of the Cirdan Group – has expanded its offer of restricted structured deposit accounts with the launch of two new products at five and 10 years at mixed rates, which respectively provide a fixed at 5% return for the first two years and for the first four years, respectively.

The two new structured deposits which are linked to the EUR CMS 30 years and EUR CMS 5 years will pay annually three times the differential if positive between the two underlying reference indices - with a minimum amount of zero. At maturity, investors will receive 100% of the nominal value invested.

The new accounts – the five-year accounts being collected until 21 June and the 10-year accounts being collected until 28 June – respond to investors' need to adopt a defensive positioning, according to Antonio De Negri (pictured), CEO of Smart Bank.

‘Given the excellent reception recorded by our Smart Bank 5X5 deposit account, which closed the funding phase in recent weeks, we have decided to expand our offer of structured deposits with two solutions that we believe can best meet the defensive needs of Italian customers, in light of the probable easing of interest rates in the near future,’ he said.

‘In fact, we believe that innovation is not a value in itself, but fully becomes so when it responds to people's needs. This awareness is guiding our action on the Italian market.’

BBVA rolls out QIS ‘SMART’ index

The new long-only, rules-based dynamic strategy offers a diversified combination of asset classes across a number of geographies and has been designed to provide strong and stable returns in a variety of market scenarios.

The BBVA SMART Index includes a three-step rules-based methodology is applied to the diversified portfolio as well as a forward-looking indicator evaluates the market risk scenario on a daily basis, adjusting the portfolio accordingly.

The index overweights or underweights different asset classes based on assets trends.

components and applying a risk control overlay that allows to keep overall volatility of the index close to the desired target,’ stated the bank.

‘[The new index] brings together the benefits of assets and regional diversification, a forward-looking risk indicator to assess of the market environment, a trend following mechanism to detect the best performing assets, and a risk budgeting to keep overall Index balanced,’ said Pablo Suarez (pictured), head of quantitative investment strategies at BBVA.

BBVA has launched an alternative risk premia index developed by its quantitative investment strategies (QIS) team.

‘Risk diversification is achieved by scaling the volatility of the index

‘This combination allows BBVA SMART Index to deliver strong and stable returns in a variety of market conditions over time.’