US-listed Morgan Stanley is to offer structured notes to the UK discretionary wealth management market with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce acting as the counter-party.

The firm said the venture gives investors a “further option to diversify counter-party risk” because investors and fund managers can choose to use either Morgan Stanley or CIBC as the issuer of a structured note.

The approach comes at a time when counter-party risk – the likelihood that the party to a particular transaction will be able to honour its obligations – has become a much more visible issue since the financial crisis of 2008. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers five years ago – Lehman was a prominent manufacturer of structured products – was a particular wake-up call to the financial industry.

Morgan Stanley has a credit rating of A-/Baa1/A (S&P/Moodys/Fitch) and CIBC is rated A+/Aa3/AA- (S&P/Moodys/Fitch).