Podcast: How Traditional Finance and Fintech Unite in Swiss Structured Products

This podcast is part of The Assetizer, GenTwo's thought leadership platform.

In this episode of The Assetizer podcast, I sit down with Georg von Wattenwyl, President of the Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA) and Global Head Structured Solutions at Bank Vontobel.

Georg brings a unique perspective spanning three decades in structured products - from his early days as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse First Boston to pioneering the Deritrade platform at Vontobel, and now leading the industry association that recently welcomed GenTwo as a partner member.

What we discuss:

• Switzerland's structured products dominance - Why this small country excels through sophisticated wealth management, innovation-friendly regulation, educated talent, and collaborative culture 
   
• The Deritrade legacy - How automating structured products transformed the industry from manual Excel-based processes to instant customization, and the direct connection to GenTwo through Patrick Loepfe 
   
• Traditional meets innovative - The significance of SSPA welcoming GenTwo as a unique partner bridging traditional bank issuance with technology and non-traditional assets 
   
• The integration challenge - Georg's key insight: structured products remain "isolated" from portfolio management systems, creating friction that needs solving for the next growth phase 
   
• Crypto's maturation journey - Applying the Xetra Gold model to digital assets, creating bankable crypto certificates for European investors who can't access ETFs 
   
• Education and gamification - SSPA's Trader Scope initiative to attract younger investors through virtual trading competitions 
   
• The future of structured products - Moving from transactional tools to long-term portfolio solutions, with AI potentially supporting processes though "not a lot already" exists
   

Georg offers a balanced view of an industry in transition - honoring its traditional strengths while embracing the innovation that companies like GenTwo bring to the ecosystem. His vision for seamless integration between structured products and wealth management systems points to the next frontier in financial product evolution.

About our guest:

Georg von Wattenwyl is a financial industry veteran with over 25 years of experience at leading firms. He brings a broad spectrum of corporate banking and finance expertise, having begun his career as a Fixed Income trader at Credit Suisse. In 1998, Georg joined Bank Vontobel, where he was co-responsible for the development and trading of derivative products. Several years later, he took charge of global advisory and sales for all financial products. In 2019, Georg was appointed Head of Wealth Management Asia and Chief Executive Officer of Vontobel Singapore. Beyond his role at Vontobel, Georg also served as Chairman of the Board of the Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Singapore from 2019 to 2023. Returning to Switzerland in 2024, Georg assumed the position of Global Head of Structured Solutions for Financial Institutions.