(Finance) – “With the change in the economic scenario which has seen the increase in rates by central banks, as UniCredit we have decided to expand the offering of products directly listed on the secondary market through instruments linked to the world of fixed income, therefore bonds in direct trading”. He told Finance Marco Medici, Head of Public Distribution Italy at UniCrediton the sidelines of the Fee-Only Summit 2024, a national event for independent financial advisors.
“We have issued about ten in the last year and a half and they have received excellent feedback from investorswho probably wanted to diversify from the portfolios they had created up to that point – he explained – We were good at diversifying our offer, therefore offering different structures that allow investors to choose the type of pay-off which was more suited to the type of view they have, therefore products that pay fixed premiums at the beginning and perhaps then variable premiums linked to the Euribor rather than products that pay only a variable coupon linked to the 3-month Euribor. We think that investors need to diversify their portfolios and as UniCredit we decided that increasing the range of products directly placed on the secondary market was a good initiative to carry forward.”
“We have seen even more this year that the certificate instrument is used to invest in the stock market, limiting volatility and having a slightly more prudent perspective than investing directly in individual securities, to limit volatility a little if we want,” Medici said.
“The tools we’ve seen go the most this year are products that pay for periodic prizes generally, paid on a monthly basis and which provide a protection barrier, therefore a conditional protection barrier, between 50 and 60%; therefore from a perspective that was quite conservative – he underlined – As underlying we have seen that both our products and those of the competition, therefore going into a study of the market, are the products that see Italian securities as underlying, therefore domestic securities that Italian investors know”.
Like UniCredit “we want to continue to improve the range we haveto be able to invest in the stock market by guaranteeing protection – said Medici – The novelty of this last week are capital protected products, which still allow you to invest in the stock market by even multiplying the return of the underlying by a given level of participation. We think these are suitable products for those investors who do not want to lose capital at maturity and therefore want to go for a product that can guarantee them at least 100% of the nominal capital at maturity; Therefore product innovation that goes in all directions both for the more conservative investor and for the slightly more sophisticated investor, who wants to take a slightly riskier position on the financial markets in this context.
As regards thefinancial education“for us at UniCredit it is very important and you need to know what you buy before you buy it – highlights Medici – We do a lot of financial education, many events both in the area and on our channels and at the UniCredit headquarters: 10 webinars a month, one event a month in our Unicredit Towers, events on the territory. We have just opened a YouTube channel where we publish all the interventions we do and pure educational material on the financial markets, so absolutely the first thing to do when investing is to know what you are investing in”.