ASIC has announced that investment banks Credit Suisse Investments Services (Australia) Limited and UBS AG (Australia branch) have changed their promotional materials for complex financial products following ASIC concerns that they were potentially misleading.

Boutique structured products investment manager Instreet Investment has also made changes to its materials promoting a product issued by UBS following similar ASIC concerns.

ASIC was concerned that Credit Suisse’s and UBS’ use of the terms ‘contingent capital protection’ and ‘conditional protection’, respectively, in their promotional material for ‘capital at risk’ structured products, was inappropriate as the products could suffer a capital loss in a falling market.

The materials could be downloaded from the companies’ websites, and were also provided to consumers by third party financial advisers.

It is essential that marketing material be checked against financial product terms to ensure that it is not misleading.