Mainland, meet money

For all the angst of the times, it is easy to forget that Asia is in the middle of an unprecedented wealth boom.

Nowhere more so than in mainland China. A Credit Suisse report notes China is the third largest wealth generator in the world, behind the US and Japan [the report was compiled before the recent tsunami disaster], and that China's household wealth is expected to double by 2015, to US$35 trillion.

There are more than 800,000 US dollar millionaires in mainland China, according to the Credit Suisse report. It adds that China's wealth is 35 per cent greater than Europe's wealthiest country, France, and close to five times the wealth of India.

The big private banks of the world are naturally looking to the mainland market with great interest. There is so much potential in that market that is, as yet, untapped.

As it stands, the mainland Chinese are very much in a mode of wealth accumulation. Wealth management (ie, all the issues involved in preserving capital, bequeathing wealth, setting up trusts and endowments, etc) is largely secondary to the objective of getting richer.

That is unsurprising, given mainland wealth is so new. Generally the first response when people encounter something nice is, 'I would like some more' - and so it is on the mainland.

'Every weekend mainland Chinese come into Hong Kong to buy real estate and shop for international banking services that are not readily available in China yet,' said Marcel Kreis, head of private banking Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse. He adds: 'The mainland Chinese are looking at wealth creation. They are looking for banks that can lend, they are looking at investment banking to help them raise capital. These are the main demands,' said Kreis. 'On the investment side they also definitely buy funds. But they buy it as a product. They don't buy it as a holistically advised asset allocation process.'