Deutsche Bank makes switch to physical ETFs as investors shun synthetics

Deutsche Bank joins the trend for ETFs backed by real assets

Making the switch

Deutsche Bank is launching its first range of physically backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as investors in Europe continue to show a preference for ETFs backed by real assets over those backed by derivatives.

At the end of October, of the 1,326 ETFs in Europe, 38.7% used physical replication while 60.8% were synthetically replicated, according to Deborah Fuhr, partner at ETFGI, an ETF research company based in London. In terms of assets, of the $313 billion in total ETF assets, $197 billion