He said as the fourth largest ETP provider in Europe, ETF Securities has multiple fact sheets available on its website which detail the workings of these products for investors interested in the market.
Lansing added that ETF Securities had "spent years trying to educate investors about ETCs" because they were not understood and accepted when first launched.
As a company ETF Securities provides far more Exchange Traded Commodities than Exchange Traded Funds.
Earlier this week, quoted in a Financial Times article, Lansing railed against proposals from iShares that said some commodity-linked ETPs should be reclassified and labelled ETNs (Exchange Traded Notes) if they are not fully backed by the physical asset.
To Portfolio Adviser, Lansing said: "A lot of what iShares is doing is a very good idea, but I think when you start getting into finer classification it is distracting a bit from the main issue.”
He agreed that clarification of the structure and financing of these products would be welcomed, but insisted that adding to the "alphabet soup" was not the way forward.
"The concerns investors actually have are paramount and one of those main concerns is credit risk. The easiest way would be to talk about physically-backed and collateralised."
His main point is that ETFs are talked about in terms of physically backed and swap-based products and ETCs should get the same treatment, rather than creating another subset of products labelled ETNs.
The role of regulators in this clean up act will be to develop even-handed and balanced regulation that ensures providers are doing what is required to help investors make regulated decisions, he said.
But ultimately the buck stops with advisers: "We do not deal with retail investors in terms of our marketing efforts. Intermediaries are in the best position to make the determination of whether a product suits their retail clients," Lansing concluded.
Coming from a background of structured product development, it’s clear Lansing understands the murky waters of some of these products.
If advisers do not then the best bet is to steer well clear.
