“Imagine a product that rises with the stock market but offers protection when markets fall—that is the essence of a structured product,” said Ildar Farkhshatov, co-founder and CTO of IVM Markets, in an interview at Nexus 2026 in Luxembourg on 11 June 2026.
Structured products are very popular in Europe for tax reasons and for various customisation needs
More specifically, the structured products analysed by IVM are investment products that combine fixed-income instruments and derivatives to participate in equity market gains while delivering a targeted coupon and a predefined level of downside protection.
SaaS platform aims to bring transparency to structured products
After initially developing an expert system to automate the complex manual tasks of hedging and rebalancing exotic options, Farkhshatov—who has a background in engineering and hedge fund structuring—shifted his focus from helping banks issue financial products to helping the buy-side identify suitable structured products for clients. The company subsequently launched the platform as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for private banks, wealth advisers, brokers and distribution partners.
“Structured products are very popular in Europe for tax reasons and for various customisation needs,” noted Farkhshatov. The industry's core challenge, he argued, is a lack of standardisation. Unlike the bond market, where prospectuses follow a uniform format, every investment bank uses its own terminology and templates for structured products. This makes meaningful comparisons between products difficult, limiting the price transparency and competitive dynamics commonly seen in equity and commodity markets.
Technology replaces anecdotal product selection
To address this problem, IVM’s platform uses millions of Monte Carlo simulations to model different market outcomes and estimate product performance. Farkhshatov emphasised the shift toward “evidence-driven selection” to replace the “gut feel” and anecdotal advice often relied upon by human bankers. The software functions, in his words, like an "Amazon for structured products", allowing users to filter for specific exposures, such as AI stocks, uranium, or defence.
According to Farkhshatov, the platform provides a transparent decision-making framework and audit trail, explaining why a specific product was chosen based on metrics like strike prices, barriers, and downside protection. He argued that IVM's system responds to regulators' growing demands for greater transparency in the UK, Europe and the US. He said regulators increasingly expect firms to demonstrate that clients are receiving the best available execution rather than favouring products issued by preferred counterparties.
Performance challenges common misconceptions
Farkhshatov cited internal data from a major European investment bank indicating that clients were profitable in six to seven out of ten structured-product investments over a 30-year period. As client outcomes improved, some banks began aligning their hedging strategies more closely with client positioning rather than treating client exposure as a risk to offset.
“Democratisation” of the structured product market
Historically, the high cost of manual structuring meant that only institutional clients with tickets of €5m or more received high-quality research. Now, with automated intelligence, investors with tickets as small as €25,000 or €50,000 can access the same level of analysis, he argued.
By lowering infrastructure costs and expanding access to sophisticated analysis, IVM Markets aims to bring institutional-grade structured-product research to a broader investor base. Whether that vision gains widespread adoption may depend on how quickly private banks and wealth managers embrace greater transparency in product selection.
