Barclays debuts education portal in an initiative to explain structured investments

By Emma Trincal

New York, Feb. 4 - In an effort to better educate its clients, Barclays Bank plc launched on Monday an education website called Understanding Structured Investments, a top executive at the bank said.

"It's all about education, education, education. We feel that it's extremely important to explain how structured investments work and how they can be used in the portfolio," Richard Couzens, Barclays head of U.S. products origination, investor solutions, told Prospect News on Thursday.

"This new website is part of an ongoing initiative in educating our clients about structured investments. Last year, we rebranded our suite of investment brochures, educating our clients on specific structures and asset classes. This is a follow up to that," Couzens said.

The brochures are now available on the website in PDF format.

"We're very excited about it. We feel that education is one of the best services we can give our clients. It's just as important as innovation, pricing and execution," Couzens added.

Meet Lori and Jim

The website opens on an interactive presentation in which Cindy, a financial adviser, conducts a client meeting with Lori and Jim, a retired married couple.

After determining her clients' main goals, return profile, risk profile, liquidity needs and time horizon, Cindy presents structured investments as a possible alternative to traditional investments as they may help resolve the "mismatch between return expectations and risk appetite."

Risk explained

An important section of the interactive module describes in detail the risks associated with structured investments.

At first, one of the clients asks if the investor is entitled to dividends and voting rights. Cindy delivers a straightforward answer: No. Investors in structured investments are not the owners of the reference assets.

Then the virtual adviser describes a list of the most common risks associated with structured products, such as principal risk, liquidity risk, credit risk, opportunity cost and several more.

More to come

"We're looking to launch additional interactive modules on additional products, strategies and wrappers. What we just did on Monday is the foundation of an interactive educational portal," said Couzens.

The site already contains several brochures, primers on specific structures such as principal-protected notes and a series of primers covering a range of various asset classes.

The portal is designed to cover not just structured notes but also certificates of deposit.

"It's structured investments because it will cover all structured products, notes and CDs. We're agnostic in that respect," said Couzens.

Couzens said that the site launched Monday was "well-received."

"The feedback from our clients was very good."

Barclays' clients include "advisers, broker-dealers, private clients and all the various channels of distribution," Couzens said.

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