Asia's burgeoning class of millionaires backed by strong economy growth offers a vast market for the world's wealth managers. Against this milieu, private banking in Asia is growing faster than any other region in the world. Especially, Singapore is witnessing the boom backed by low taxes, political stability, banking confidentiality, strong legal system, professional workforce and more importantly better regulatory environment. Besides the growing Asian client base, most of big private banks have set up their branches to cater to Singapore-based Europeans, non-resident Indians, Chinese and the Middle East community.
In fact, Asia is bundling more millionaires at a faster rate than any other region in the world. For instance, the number of millionaires in India and South Korea surged at a remarkable rate of 19.3% and 21.3%, respectively, while Indonesia and Hong Kong recorded double-digit growth. An interesting fact is that most of them are self-made millionaires or billionaires rather than inheritors of wealth. So, the ways of managing the money are entrepreneurial as well and they are no longer interested to invest in bonds and property. They are more interested to manage their wealth effectively and are expanding their investment bar from hedge funds and private equity to currencies and derivatives. |
