Asia's private banks stripped bare
Private banks want you. But do you want them? A definitive guide to what the top firms offer, by Tara Loader Wilkinson
For Asia’s millionaires, picking the right private bank can be daunting. Selection entails sifting through a seemingly confusing array of products on offer, not to mention the growing number of firms vying for business. Rachel Kum (right), a cosmetics entrepreneur living in Singapore described her experience: “Ultimately, it comes down to trust. Are they giving me independent advice or are they incentivised to push one product over another?”
The world’s private banks are converging on Asia, partly because the business outlook in their home market has been bleak. The European debt crisis, the rolling back of Swiss privacy laws, a global crackdown on tax evasion, and even the recent introduction of capital controls in Cyprus are beginning to weigh negatively on wealth managers focused on a Western client base.
Meanwhile, Asia generates the highest number of new US-dollar equivalent millionaires each year, according to a 2012 report by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. About 3.4 million individuals in Asia were deemed to have ascended into the millionaire’s league table in terms of net wealth in 2011, surpassing North America in social mobility for the first time.
“As Asia is a market region of hope for wealth management, all operators are looking at ways to win market share here,” says Sebastian Dovey, managing partner of wealth management consultant, Scorpio Partnership.
Money Magazine examines Asia’s top 10 private banks as ranked by their assets under management (AuM) in Asia excluding Japan.
AuM is the most direct measure of each bank’s size in Asia. The banks supplied the data directly. In instances where they declined to give a figure, we sourced the data from Private Banker International, a trade publication.