Structured Products Asia 2011: conference report

Defining common sense can be difficult, but that has not stopped Hong Kong’s regulators from asking banks to apply this criteria when deciding which investors can buy certain products. And then there remains the onerous task of providing simple explanations of collateral, volatility and inflation. Richard Jory reports

Years of talking, regulating and rule-making in Hong Kong has finally boiled down to new rules for structured products that will be judged on the basis of that age-old legal fall guy, the ‘reasonable man', according to Alice Law, senior director, policy, China and investment products at the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), in her keynote address at the Structured Products Asia conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong on September 5.

"It should be common sense how you understand