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December is make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and in "No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS," we hope that giving it to you as matter-of-fact as we can will work to raise the $350,000 we need to raise this month. Donations make up 74 percent of our budget this year, and all online gifts will be matched and go twice as far until we hit our goal.
Structured deposits offer higher returns than regular savings accounts and are tied to bets on assets from currencies to gold. They have been around for years, but the sums outstanding have soared recently. In July they stood at a record 9.71 trillion yuan ($1.42 trillion), up 52% in a year, according to data provider Wind.
….The investments are a form of structured product. In the U.S., this broader asset class enjoyed solid growth until the global financial crisis, when products issued by Lehman Brothers suffered steep losses. In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced stricter disclosure requirements for structured notes, bonds that contain a derivative component.
….However, many of these structured deposits in China have structures where the terms are “set so far off that investors can almost always get the advertised maximum return,” says Ms. Wan at Moody’s. In a 91-day product recently marketed by Weihai Blue Ocean Bank, the small lender from eastern Shandong province offered the equivalent of 5.28% a year if gold prices in London, now around $1,183 per ounce, stay between $300 and $2,200. If not, customers will receive 1.65%.
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