Investments · Structured Products · Service
Bespoke Structured Notes, Built Around Your Requirements
Off-the-shelf structured notes are designed for the broad market: standard indices, standard barriers, standard terms. For larger investment amounts, that compromise is unnecessary. Our investment team sources bespoke structured notes from investment-grade issuers, with the underlying, barrier level, currency, term and coupon frequency tailored to your requirements. This page explains what bespoke structuring involves, who it suits, and how the process works.
Service overview
What Bespoke Structuring Is
Most structured notes reach investors the way most suits do: ready-made. An issuing bank designs a note — an underlying index, a barrier, a term, a coupon schedule — and distributes it widely on identical terms. The investor's only decision is whether to buy it as designed. For the majority of the market, at typical retail commitment sizes, that model works well, and it is the model behind the products described on our structured notes overview.
Bespoke structuring reverses the direction of design. Instead of choosing among structures that already exist, the investor's requirements are defined first — the market exposure wanted, the protection needed, the currency the capital lives in, the dates that matter — and a note is then commissioned from an issuing bank to meet them. The result is a private placement: a note created for one investor or family, not a tranche marketed to thousands.
The building blocks are the same as any structured product — the payoff mechanics described in our guides to autocall notes and capital protected notes apply here in full. What changes is who the structure serves. An off-the-shelf note is optimised for distribution; a bespoke note is optimised for its holder.
What the Service Is — and Is Not
Our role is sourcing and arrangement. We take a defined set of requirements to investment-grade issuing banks, gather competing indicative terms, present them with the risks stated plainly alongside the mechanics, and — if you decide to proceed — arrange the subscription and keep you informed through the life of the note.
What the service is not: it is not advice, and it is not a promise of an outcome. We do not make personal recommendations, and nothing about a bespoke mandate changes the fundamental character of a structured note — it remains an obligation of its issuer, its returns remain conditional on the performance of the underlying, and capital remains at risk. Tailoring changes the shape of the risk; it does not remove it.
Nor can a bespoke mandate compel the market. Whether a structure can be created on the terms sought depends on issuer appetite and prevailing market conditions. Part of the value of the sourcing process is finding out, before any commitment, what the market will actually offer against your requirements.
Suitability
Who Bespoke Structuring Suits
Bespoke issuance only becomes economic at larger commitment sizes: an issuing bank will not build a private structure for a retail-sized subscription, and the work involved is only worthwhile where the tailoring delivers something the off-the-shelf market cannot. In practice, the service suits a specific set of investors.
High-Net-Worth Individuals
Investors committing larger amounts than a retail tranche requires, for whom the standard terms of an off-the-shelf note are a compromise rather than a fit. At meaningful size, the structure can be built around the investor instead of the investor adapting to the structure.
Family Offices & Trustees
Structures written to sit inside an existing governance framework — a trust deed, an investment policy statement, or a family office mandate — with the underlying, currency and term chosen to match liabilities and reporting requirements rather than an issuer’s standard calendar.
Investors with a Defined Market View
An investor who holds a specific view on a particular index, sector or region, and wants a payoff written around that view — rather than the broad equity benchmarks that dominate the off-the-shelf market — can have the underlying and the payoff conditions specified to express it.
Multi-Currency Portfolios
Internationally mobile investors whose wealth, liabilities and future spending sit in different currencies. A bespoke note can be denominated in the currency the capital will ultimately be spent in, removing a layer of conversion risk that standard-issue notes ignore.
For investors whose commitment size or requirements sit closer to the mainstream, the off-the-shelf market is usually the better answer — the structures on our current opportunities page, or a conversation about the standard product families, will serve them well. Bespoke structuring can also operate inside a wider discretionary portfolio mandate, where a tailored note is used to shape a specific return profile within a professionally managed portfolio.
Design scope
The Parameters That Can Be Tailored
A structured note is defined by a small number of design decisions. In the off-the-shelf market, every one of them has been made before you arrive. In a bespoke mandate, each is a variable — and the interaction between them is where the design work happens, because moving one parameter changes what the market will offer on the others.
Underlying Indices & Baskets
The index, share basket or combination the note references. Off-the-shelf notes cluster around a handful of major benchmarks; a bespoke mandate can reference regional indices, sector baskets, or a combination weighted to the investor’s existing exposure — including underlyings chosen to avoid doubling up on what the portfolio already holds.
Barrier Levels & Protection Style
Where the capital protection barrier sits, and how it is observed — at maturity only, or throughout the term. Moving the barrier changes the balance between protection and potential return, and the observation style materially changes the probability of a breach. Both are set to the investor’s risk tolerance rather than an issuer’s template.
Currencies
The denomination of the capital, the coupons and the redemption amount. A note can be issued in the investor’s base currency, or structured with the currency exposure of the underlying either retained or removed, depending on whether that exposure is wanted as part of the position.
Term Length
The scheduled life of the note, and where any early redemption observation dates fall within it. Term can be matched to a known liability date, a planned liquidity event, or the investor’s wider portfolio maturity ladder — rather than the standard tenors the retail market defaults to.
Coupon Frequency & Structure
How often coupons are observed and paid, whether they are fixed or conditional, and whether unpaid coupons accumulate for later payment. Payment frequency can be aligned with income needs, and the coupon condition set at the level of conditionality the investor is prepared to accept.
Issuer Selection
Which investment-grade institution issues the note. Because a structured note is an obligation of its issuer, the choice of issuer is a risk decision, not an administrative one. A bespoke mandate allows the issuer to be selected — and concentration to any single issuer managed — as part of the design.
Every Parameter Is a Trade-Off
Tailoring is not a way of getting more protection and more return at once. The pricing of a structured note is a closed system: a more protective barrier, a shorter term, or a less volatile underlying each reduce what the issuer can offer elsewhere in the structure, and a richer coupon is always paid for somewhere — usually in the protection level or the conditionality of the payment. The purpose of a bespoke mandate is not to escape these trade-offs but to place them deliberately, where your circumstances can best absorb them.
How it works
How the Process Works
A bespoke mandate runs from an open conversation to a live note through a series of defined stages. At every stage before execution, you can stop, change the brief, or take more time — nothing commits you until you subscribe to a note whose final terms you have seen.
Initial discussion
A conversation with our investment team about what the capital is for, the outcome you are trying to shape, the risks you are and are not prepared to carry, and how the position would sit alongside the rest of your portfolio. This stage is exploratory and commits you to nothing.
Requirement definition
The discussion is distilled into a written outline of the structure being sought: the underlying, the protection level and style, the currency, the term, and the coupon mechanics. This document is the brief against which issuers are approached, and you review it before anything goes to market.
Issuer sourcing
Our investment team approaches investment-grade issuers with the brief and gathers indicative terms. Competing indications are compared on their economics and on the credit standing of each issuer. Indicative terms are exactly that — indicative — and move with market conditions until a note is struck.
Review and independent advice
You receive the candidate terms together with the issuer documentation, in plain terms and with the risks stated alongside the mechanics. We do not make personal recommendations. This is the stage to take independent financial advice on whether the structure is suitable for your circumstances — and we encourage exactly that.
Execution and ongoing monitoring
If you decide to proceed, the subscription is arranged through the issuer and the final documentation is confirmed to you. Through the life of the note, we keep you informed around observation dates and any events affecting the issuer or the underlying, through to redemption or maturity.
Timescales depend on the complexity of the brief and on how quickly issuers respond with indicative terms; a straightforward structure moves faster than one referencing an unusual underlying or an uncommon currency. Because indicative pricing moves with the market, our investment team will always tell you when terms you are considering are approaching the point at which they need to be either struck or refreshed.
Risk awareness
The Risks of Bespoke Structures
A bespoke note carries every risk of a standard structured note, and tailoring adds considerations of its own. These need to be understood before a brief is ever written.
Counterparty Risk
A bespoke note is an obligation of the bank that issues it. If the issuer fails, capital and any accrued return may be lost regardless of how the underlying has performed. Issuer selection is part of the design process for exactly this reason, but no selection removes the risk — it is inherent to the instrument.
Illiquidity — Often Deeper Than Standard Notes
Structured notes are generally illiquid, and a privately placed bespoke note can be more illiquid still: there is no wide holder base, and any exit before maturity depends on the issuer being willing to quote a price, which may be materially below the note's theoretical value. Capital committed to a bespoke structure should be capital you will not need before the scheduled maturity.
Complexity and Conditional Returns
Tailoring can add moving parts, and every additional condition in a payoff is something that can fail to be met. Returns on structured notes are conditional, not promised: a note can run its full term and return no more than the protected capital, and where a barrier is breached, less than the capital invested. The scenarios in which each of these happens should be understood — and stress-tested — before subscription.
Sourcing Risk
There is no assurance that a structure can be created on the terms sought. Issuer appetite varies with market conditions, and a brief may come back repriced, amended, or declined. The process is designed to establish what is achievable before you commit — not to guarantee that a particular design can be built.
Risk Warning: This is not a personal recommendation. Structured notes, including bespoke structures, carry significant risk, including loss of capital. Returns are conditional and depend on the performance of the underlying and the financial health of the issuer. Bespoke structures may be highly illiquid before maturity. Independent financial advice should be sought before investing. This service is for sophisticated investors and high-net-worth individuals only.
Discuss a bespoke structure with our investment team
Tell us about the outcome you want to shape — the exposure, the protection, the currency, the term — and our investment team will discuss whether a bespoke structure is worth exploring, with no obligation at any stage.