The market for structured investment products - those offering equity upside alongside capital protection, for instance - has grown significantly this year as private-bank investment intermediaries and retail investors try to shore up returns and escape punishing equity market conditions.
UBS Warburg's KeyInvest, a set of country-specific sites, is the best web platform for warrants, certificates and similar products, because it offers the user the widest range of information and tools. Although buyers of structured investment products cannot expect the same level of individual service received by institutional fund managers, UBS Warburg gives them a more complete system than any other bank, with more market information and proportionally less marketing material for its own products. The users are both private-bank intermediaries and end-users. Each site therefore has to address a wide range of levels of comfort and competence with these investments.
Each of the products is explained in depth, including risks and benefits, whether leverage, capital protection, or potential for equity upside. Each is evaluated on a simple risk/return graph, so that even a fairly inexperienced user can easily see which products could be right for them.
Clicking on an underlying stock or index brings up information on all the instruments based on it.