Article in the Swiss Banking Yearbook 2008/2009

Product jungle, communication chaos, non availability of termsheets, this is the brave new world of structured products. Finding the right product is usually a long and cumbersome process. In view of this, Marc Freudweiler, previously head of Credit Suisse’s Investment Services Desk in Monaco, and Lars Kermode, financial IT specialist, started derilab in 2006. Together, they developed a derivative search engine covering listed and, more interestingly, non-listed structured products, the latter accounting for approximately 60 to 70% of all structured products sold in Switzerland.

Today, derilab’s product database is fed by 21 banks representing around 24,000 active structured products. In addition to its scale and the quality of its data, the web-based financial information portal has several advantages: it is reliable, flexible and independent. All products are analysed, then classified—there is no miscellaneous category—for the most part according to the mapping developed by the Swiss Structured Products Association. The product information accessed through the search engine is standardised, checked by derilab and if necessary, completed. As for flexibility, the search engine offers more than 30 search criteria, going from the product name to currency, the marketing partner or the ISIN code. Neutrality of the information is ensured by the fact the company is owned by the two partners, and their close relations, with revenues that are exclusively subscription-based. derilab is completely issuer neutral and does not generate revenues from advertising because as Marc Freudweiler specifies, based on his banking experience: “Our aim is to support our customers in finding the best-suited product in the shortest time possible and with all necessary information.”

Relationship managers, especially in open architecture structures or even in large banks, independent asset managers, advisory desks, back offices, credit and compliance officers, can largely benefit from this fast search engine. As for the future,Marc Freudweiler is considering the development of white label solutions—access for all or selected intranet users, with the same view as derilab subscribers, but with the user’s own corporate identity and logo or custom filters for different groups of users. He also plans to add dynamic alerts to the existing watchlists because when barriers are hit, as many investors have experienced in the past few months, time is big money.

Véronique Bühlmann

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