Singapore has a healthy head start on rival Hong Kong in the race to
become Asia’s top wealth management center, according to a new report on wealth
in Asia. The Chinese territory is taking steps to catch up, but Singapore’s
allure as a safe haven for wealth continues to attract a lot of private
investment from Greater China.
The importance of these two
cities as offshore banking centers has grown, especially as regulators and
institutions continue to carve out distinctions between the high net worth
segment of the banking market and the mass affluent, typically defined as
people with US$100,000 or more in investable assets.
“At present, Singapore might have
a slight edge over Hong Kong…but Hong Kong is taking steps to bridge that gap,”
RBC Wealth Management Head of Emerging Markets Barend Janssens said at a
briefing on the Asia Pacific Wealth Report, released by consulting group
Capgemini and the Canadian firm.
The report highlighted generally
tough conditions for the industry in 2011, when a weak performance for stock markets
ate into wealth of the region’s rich, even as more people joined the ranks of
the wealthy. Asia’s population of high net worth individuals–those with
investable assets of US$1 million or more–rose 1.6% in 2011 from 2010 to 3.4
million, though the pool of wealth declined 1.1% to US$10.7 trillion.
But the Southeast Asian city in
2011 overtook Hong Kong on both those measures, with 91,000 high net worth
individuals with a combined US$439 billion compared to Hong Kong’s 89,000 with
US$408 billion. In 2010 Singapore had 99,000 people with US$453 billion in
savings while Hong Kong had 101,000 with US$511 billion.
The report identified ways in
which Singapore has taken the lead over Hong Kong. Among them, it credited
Singapore’s single regulatory body and more predictable and transparent legal
framework. Hong Kong has multiple regulatory bodies and its financial market
policies are less developed, the report said.
Singapore’s status as a fully
independent nation was also seen as a big plus compared with Hong Kong, which
is perceived as being under the influence of mainland China authorities.
Mr. Janssens said Singapore’s
reputation as a haven against “country risk” perceived in other jurisdictions
across Asia was a draw, especially among investors from mainland China and
Taiwan. He said his bank has continued to see growth in the number of investors
from Greater China parking assets in Singapore.
However, Hong Kong’s robust
capital markets are considered to be an advantage–compared with more modest
volumes seen in Singapore–and its regulatory framework is expected to change to
meet the growing demands of the wealth industry.
The Capgemini-RBC report, which
followed the publication of a report in June on global high net wealth trends,
comes as industry interest in Asian wealth intensifies. A number of
organizations have in recent months released studies on growing affluence in
the region, with particular attention paid to Singapore’s role as a private
banking hub.
Earlier this year, Boston
Consulting Group’s Wealth Report said Singapore has the highest percentage of
millionaire households in the world, a title the country has held for two years
running.
A report on global high-net-worth
trends, released earlier this week by wealth-research group Wealth-X, showed
Indonesia bucked a wider contraction in wealth, both globally and in Asia, in
2012.
Sam Holmes
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, you may contact us at: sbc.pte@gmail.com, provisionally. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment