Regulatory crackdown puts Korea autocalls in deep freeze

Mis-selling fears see distributors pull back, leading to 40% issuance fall in a month

Issuance of equity index-linked autocallable notes in South Korea has fallen more than 40% after a mis-selling probe prompted several distributors to freeze sales of the products. 

In March, an investigation by Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) concluded that distributor banks had mis-sold popular autocallable structures linked to the worst performer of three underlying equity indexes. South Korea’s retail investors have been facing mounting losses on the products, which included the