When markets feel like a “rollercoaster ride” and geopolitics keep rewriting the daily risk narrative, investor behaviour changes fast. Advisors see it in client conversations: hesitation, second-guessing and a growing appetite for solutions that can restore confidence without pushing clients entirely into cash.
Famida Singh and Luvhani Makoni, both in the Investment Propositions team at Standard Bank, say the demand for investment products that provide a level of safety and certainty in outcomes is rising as clients look for peace of mind without stepping out of markets altogether.
Singh argues that the current cycle has compounded uncertainty from multiple directions. In her words, “the combination of local as well as global socio-political issues, threats to global trade and policy changes catalysed by the US have increased volatility more so than previous years”, which in turn leaves “a cohort of clients that are very nervous to invest not understanding what this ‘new normal’ really is”.
Singh adds that volatility is not a reason to stop investing; it is a reason to seek better-aligned solutions. “And so it’s a great opportunity for Financial Services Providers that have the necessary licence and capabilities to provide some kind of certainty and a safety net to these clients in a time when things are particularly volatile.
This is a great opportunity for investors, and we see the positive outcome for investors over the long term.
Structured products have regained relevance by blending participation with predefined outcomes and protective guardrails.
Liberty’s structured portfolios proposition pairs transparent index exposure with capital protection designed to hold through market events, stating net of tax and net of fees return outcomes upfront for clients who prioritise predictability.
Why Liberty returned to structured portfolios
Liberty’s re-entry into structured portfolios in 2018 was driven less by a single market timing call and more by what advisors were asking for on behalf of clients. Makoni explains that Liberty already saw demand in the guaranteed space – particularly for its Guaranteed Capital Bond (GCB) – but advisors wanted an option for clients who wanted market exposure and could accept a measured step up in risk while retaining a protective overlay.
As Makoni puts it, “It wasn’t necessarily a market signal but more what we were seeing from our client base… what we saw from them was a demand from advisors for clients who could stomach a little bit more risk… but still wanted that guarantee overlay, which is where we reintroduced structured portfolios in 2018.” The timing of course panned out with the volatility we’ve seen in markets since then.
The message for intermediaries is clear: the rationale was demand-led. In a volatile world, clients often want something between full market exposure and fully guaranteed products – an outcome-focused alternative that still recognises behavioural risk and the need for planning certainty.
Defined outcomes, clearer comparability
At their core, structured products are engineered outcomes: a degree of capital protection, exposure to a basket of indices or an index, and a predefined return profile over a fixed term. The advisor’s job is to ensure the design fits the investor’s horizon and liquidity constraints.
Makoni describes Liberty’s approach as having two layers. The first is universal: “Every structured portfolio gives clients some degree of capital protection, and some sort of market exposure, and predefined return outcomes.” The second layer is where Liberty has targeted differentiation – especially around transparency in how outcomes are quoted.
“Our predefined return outcomes are after fees and after taxes… but from our side a key motivation was to be as transparent as possible in how we constructed these structures,” she says, noting that in the broader market outcomes are frequently quoted on a mix of gross and net bases, making comparisons harder for advisors and end clients. For professional clients and consultants, net-of-fee and net-of-tax communication can reduce the gap between an illustrated outcome and the investor’s realised experience.
Liberty has also embedded estate-planning features via its endowment. In Makoni’s words, “We’ve got a great death benefit on our Evolve endowment, that allows clients to leave their loved ones the greater of the investment value on the date that Liberty receives notification of death plus an enhancement, or the lump sum investment amount, which is something that really aims to help clients leave a legacy.” In so doing this supports the use of structured products within the broader field of estate and succession planning discussions.
Engineering the payoff and managing expectations
In structured products, payoff design is the product. Liberty’s local structures have commonly used a digital payoff construction, which is an approach intended to convert uncertain market paths into clearer outcome ranges. “We have a digital payoff so, basically, all we need is a positive index movement to deliver on the predefined return outcome,” explains Makoni.
The implication is a disciplined trade-off: these products are not built to capture unlimited upside in strong bull markets. Instead, the design prioritises delivering the agreed minimum scenario when conditions are met. That is particularly relevant for investors who value consistency and planning – in other words, clients who would rather secure an attractive, predefined outcome than take the full ride of market volatility.
She is careful to not to raise expectations on performance optics.
“We’ve never shot the lights out and delivered over the predefined minimum return,” adds Makoni, “but we’ve been able to deliver on our minimum returns for clients which have been attractive rates at that point in time.”
To illustrate this, she points to maturity experience: “So far, we’ve had three structured portfolios with a digital pay-off mature that delivered on the 9.80% pa mark. Two of them delivered at 9.80% pa while the third hit 10.17% pa.”
Singh frames that delivery record in client-centric terms, emphasising the importance of trust when markets feel unstable.
“An ordinary client out there wants to trust that whatever you tell them, you’re going to deliver and they don’t need to worry about market volatility. They know they will have peace of mind,” she says, before adding that “we have done that, to the core”.
Protection that holds through the term
For advisors, the most important technical diligence question is how protection behaves during the life of the structure. Some designs can reduce protection after interim drawdowns, creating path dependency that only becomes clear when markets are under stress. Liberty’s proposition highlights a different approach.
Makoni describes a central differentiator: protection that remains intact for the full five-year horizon: “One of the differentiators with our Liberty structures proposition is that our protection holds throughout the five-year term.”
She further illustrates the practical impact with a market-stress scenario: “Had you been in a structured product that you entered in 2018 shortly before the markets dipped just below 30% because of Covid, you would have never lost your capital protection with Liberty. Our clients were not penalised due to market conditions not recovering or it wasn’t dependent on whether the markets recovered or didn’t recover.” The focus, she stresses, is the outcome at maturity – not the path in between.
In professional portfolios, a structured product often serves to stabilise return pathways within a broader allocation. Protection engineered to hold through the term makes it easier to position the solution as planning infrastructure rather than a tactical trade.
Underlying exposures and thematic evolution
A structured payoff is only as compelling as the underlying exposure. Liberty’s proposition has aimed to keep the building blocks recognisable, with indices that are transparent.
“The S&P 500 has been a part of our proposition since 2018,” notes Singh, describing it as part of a consistent index toolkit alongside European exposure and previous thematic options.
At the same time, thematics are treated as medium-term expressions of where the team believes value can be extracted over a five-year horizon – subject to pricing and index governance. Makoni points to the move from an ESG thematic (launched in 2021 and held until May 2025) to a new AI thematic, reflecting forward-looking views on technology investment and adoption.
“Last year we introduced a new AI thematic,” she says, explaining that the underlying AI index considers both companies that are enablers of AI and the adopters across industries. The aim is to participate in a structural growth theme while still packaging the exposure inside a predefined, protected outcome framework. Importantly, she notes that index governance and transparency remain central.
Singh adds an important constraint for advisors: thematics must remain viable over the investment horizon.
“A lot of our wrapped solutions are actually over five years, which we would coin as medium term at best, and that means thematics need to be tested against market dynamics, value extraction potential, and the ability to price the payoff appropriately for clients,” says Singh.
Access points, wrappers and international demand
A further important theme for investors to be aware of is choice of access. Liberty’s structured products can be delivered via its endowment structures such as the Evolve Investment Plan. As the Standard Bank Group, structured products can also be accessed through other routes aligned to liquidity, reporting and implementation needs, all of which offers flexibility that helps advisors map solutions appropriate for their clients.
International structured solutions are a growing part of the story, particularly for high-net-worth clients who want defined outcomes in hard currency while retaining endowment-related planning benefits. Singh adds that, “We can see the popularity of those international structures coming in, because it gives you extremely attractive coupon rates and coupon yields with quite minimal risk and all with endowment benefits, particularly for your high-net-worth investors.”
International structures can complement local solutions through currency diversification and additional payoff profiles, while the endowment wrapper can support estate-planning objectives. Singh’s emphasis is that the menu should keep evolving as investor needs change and markets reprice risk.
Platform evolution and manufacturing capability
Beyond product features, the interview points to an operational shift: making structured products easier to access, compare and manage within an integrated environment. Singh argues that scale and manufacturing depth create an advantage in how quickly a proposition can adapt to changing conditions.
“The big advantage of the Standard Bank Group is our ability to manufacture across the board,” she says. “We have several manufacturers in-house and we’ve got best of breed capability to source whatever we need… from other issuers across the world, not just the continent and create a structured portfolio proposition that meets various types of client needs.”
In volatile markets, manufacturing flexibility can matter: option pricing, index behaviour and volatility levels all shape whether a structure is attractive and deliverable on fair terms.
Singh points to platform delivery as a next step.
“As we simplify our architecture, we will at some point conclude the delivery of our structured products in a platform environment locally, and that will enable clients to facilitate the implementation of all of the investment solutions in one place from a local perspective. Similarly, we have started this process with international business as well,” adds Singh.
Makoni believes a platform environment can change issuance cadence as well as convenience, adding that the demand is increasing for more frequent opportunity windows.
The bottom line for advisors
Both speakers return to a central message for intermediaries: structured products require comparison on design, not on headline marketing language.
“Not all structured products are the same and not all structured products are equal,” cautions Singh, adding that Liberty’s local structured products have “to date, always been in the money. Our team is really proud of that fact.”
From a Liberty perspective, the due-diligence conversation should focus on the features that shape investor outcomes: whether protection is designed to hold through the full term; how returns are quoted; whether the payoff profile is robust enough to manage different market regimes; and whether the wrapper delivers any additional benefits such as the enhanced death benefit and allocation enhancements from the endowment.
For advisors serving high-net-worth individuals, corporates and trusts with natural beneficiaries, the appeal is disciplined engineering – protection, transparency and predefined outcomes – delivered through recognisable indices and evolving thematics. Liberty’s structured proposition aims to keep clients invested with fewer surprises along the way.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute tax, legal, financial, regulatory, accounting, technical or other advice. The material has been created for information purpose only and does not contain any personal recommendations. While every care has been taken in preparing this material, no member of Liberty gives any representation, warranty or undertaking and accepts no responsibility or liability as to the accuracy, or completeness, of the information presented. If there are any discrepancies between this information and the contractual terms and conditions, the contractual terms and conditions will prevail. Past performance cannot be relied on as an indication of future performance. Investment performance will depend on the growth in the underlying assets, which will be influenced by prevailing market conditions. Any recommendations made by a financial advisor or broker must take into consideration your specific needs and unique circumstances. Please consult your financial advisor should you require advice of a financial nature and/or intermediary services.
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