Crazy Rich Asians: Post-Covid, Singapore banks woo next-generation wealth with rich kids’ boot camp

For banks it’s vital to get clients while they’re young, and build rapport with the richest clans for when children take over or become wealthy

Financiers who fail to build loyalty among the affluent young and prove their value are likely to lose out on lucrative accounts and access to deals

Reading Time:3 minutes

Private executive airplane with limousine Rolls Royce Phantom luxury car shown together at an airport runway. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:12pm, 3 Oct 2022Updated: 12:25pm, 3 Oct 2022

For years Covid froze one of private banking’s best tools for keeping customers loyal – invite-only events for the children of wealthy clients. Now, as global borders finally reopen, they’re starting to return.

In the bowels of Singapore’s Ritz-Carlton hotel 12 young people in grey hoodies sipping bubble tea could be mistaken for a university study group on first glance. That is until you look down and see the Balenciaga trainers and US$4,000 Christian Dior book totes.

The sessions that include the nuances of cryptocurrency art are part of a week-long event run by the Bank of Singapore, one of those tentatively resuming physical programmes despite the awkward potential risk of infecting some of their richest scions. While the private banks tried to replicate in-person shindigs with Zoom seminars and learning portals during the pandemic, these did not always succeed in sufficiently engaging the next generation.

Trillions of dollars in Asian wealth is likely to shift to the next generation this decade as the region’s elders – many of whom built businesses that dominate their respective economies – transfer their fortunes. Financiers who fail to build loyalty among the affluent young and prove their value are likely to lose out on lucrative accounts and access to deals.

“I would fly around the world just to be somewhere in person,” said Benjamin Hort, a 19-year-old from the Czech Republic who attended the Bank of Singapore session. “Going into online, I’ll just turn my camera on and go to sleep.”

There have been plenty of tweaks from pre-Covid-19 days. The Michelin-starred restaurant meals and gala dinners are tapered for safety reasons and the sessions are often shorter – for participants still wearing face masks an entire day is impractical. But the necessity of such relationship building events has never been stronger.

Seventy-two of Asia’s 141 richest people are older than 60 and have fortunes of US$1.1 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.