WMA calls for retail bond market to be opened up to wealth managers

The Wealth Management Association (WMA) is calling for an overhaul of the retail bond market in order to make it more accessible to wealth managers and their clients.

Under the European Commission’s current regime, corporate bond issues above €100,000 (£74,000) come with a wholesale prospectus, but anything smaller must be issued with a much heavier retail prospectus, which is costly and time consuming to produce. According to John Barrass (pictured), deputy chief executive at the WMA, this has resulted in many UK issuers bringing bonds to the market in denominations predominantly above €100,000 to avoid this hurdle. Barrass is calling for this limit, and the attached requirement for a retail prospectus, to be eliminated to encourage corporations t...