Structured Products Asia Awards 2016: call for entries

Interviews for the annual Structured Products awards for Asia start soon. Find out how your firm can enter.

The awards will be presented at the Structured Products Asia conference in Hong Kong on August 30

Entries for the Structured Products Asia Awards are now open. Interviews will begin in late June. Entries close on Friday 24 June.

Please submit your entries via the online portal here: www.structuredproductsawards.com/asia

Firms will be required to submit a pitch document detailing why they should win a given category. Specific details for each category can be found here: www.structuredproductsawards.com/asia

Entrants will then be interviewed by our editorial team. All pitch documents and initial conversations will be treated as off the record. We believe that running the awards on this basis gives entrants the best opportunity to showcase everything they're most proud of from the past 12 months – be it landmark deals, client wins or the successful navigation of a thorny risk management problem – in the knowledge that non-public information on those deals will not be disclosed without your permission. In turn, it gives our editorial panel a chance to reward entrants on the basis of a greater breadth of information.

The pitch documents can be structured as you wish, but should include milestones from the previous 12 months, including key metrics such as revenue statistics, issuance volumes or assets under management; a thematic discussion of the firm's achievements over that time; and case studies that demonstrate how particular problems were overcome, how a certain deal was structured, or where you believe outstanding client service was provided.

The pitch is just a first chance to put your story across, and should not be so detailed that it becomes a disincentive to enter: between six and 12 pages is an optimum length. Please bear in mind also that the pitch documents alone will not win you anything; the interviews that follow during July and August – which will also be conducted on an off-the-record basis – are more important, as is feedback from your clients.

Please aim to include the details (names, email addresses, phone numbers) of at least six clients who are happy to be contacted to discuss the work you did with them over the past 12 months. As with the submissions themselves, the details of client calls will be treated as strictly off the record.

This year, we have two new awards: multi-issuer platform (MIP) of the year and institutional investor of the year. The MIP award seeks to recognise the strides MIPs have made in this fast-evolving and highly competitive space in the Asian capital markets. Client references should include bank pricing providers as well as buy-side users.

For the institutional investor category, every bank that enters the awards is invited to nominate one client – a private bank or an insurer, for instance – who has shown particular innovation in the field of structured products over the past 12 months. Nominations should outline why the investor should win and include details of notable deals. Investors may also nominate themselves.

The Asia structured products house of the year award will be judged on the basis of a structurers' quality of service across multiple regions in all asset classes, acknowledging cross-border as well as domestic product creation. Your submissions should include a catalogue of your innovations in the cross-border market and in any national jurisdiction in which you do business.

Our country awards, meanwhile, are open to financial institutions that create and/or distribute structured products to investors, whether this is at the retail, high-net-worth or private banking level. These awards are open to distributors and banks that have created especially innovative products for the individual markets. The countries we will review are: Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan.

The awards will be presented at the Structured Products Asia conference at the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong on the evening of August 30.

Once again, entries close on Friday June 24. Please direct any queries with regards entries to [e-mail]

The very best of luck to all of this year's entrants.

Please see below for the full list of categories:

Structurer awards

Asia structured products house of the year
Equity derivatives house of the year
Interest rates house of the year
Foreign exchange house of the year
Commodities house of the year
Deal of the year

Specialist awards

Technology provider of the year - bank
Technology provider of the year - non-bank
Index provider of the year
Exchange-traded funds house of the year
Institutional investor of the year
Multi-issuer platform of the year

Country awards

Australia house of the year
Hong Kong house of the year
Japan house of the year
Malaysia house of the year
South Korea house of the year
Taiwan house of the year