Asian Wealth Solutions Forum 2018

We were delighted to host our annual Wealth Solutions event in Singapore.  Over 300 CEOs, COOs, senior management, product/fund gatekeepers, senior wealth planning and wealth structuring practitioners attended – from a mix of Private Banks, Retail Banks, Insurance Companies, Independent Firms & Family Offices, and IFAs.

Below for your interest and reference are links to various content we captured from the day. Please click on the orange headlines – and do send any comments or feedback to [email protected].

Content Highlights 

Video Highlights
Video Highlights Summary PDF
I love wealth management
Photos
Event summary
Panel discussions
Presentations & Wealth TALKS
Videos

Post-event Report

You might also like to view the full Post-Event Report – which is a consolidated summary, including photos of speakers & delegates, the attendee profiles & some delegate feedback, polling results, and more.

Event Summary 

Asia’s HNW Families and the Wealth Management of the Future

As the Asian private banking and wealth management industry goes through various degrees of recalibration and strategic rethinking, Hubbis was delighted to host another remarkably successful event focussing on family wealth planning and succession planning, two vital and increasingly important areas in Asia as many of the founder-leaders of families retire or pass away and as a new era of regulatory rectitude and global enforcement takes grip.

Video Highlights

At the Hubbis Digital Wealth Asia Forum in Hong Kong on November 9th, we interviewed leading industry experts. 
Full Video Highlights
Video Highlights Summary PDF
I love wealth management

Their individual interviews can be accessed below: 

Brendan Dolan Old Mutual International
Craig Ellis Charles Monat
Gerard Gardner EFG Wealth Solutions
Marcus Hinkley Hawksford
Mark Smallwood HP Wealth Management
Woon Shiu Lee Bank of Singapore
Edmund Leow Dentons
Georgina Foord INTL FCStone
Zac Lucas Centenal
Tan Woon Hum  Shook Lin & Bok
Nirbhay Handa Henley & Partners 
Pierre Vanrenterghem Rosemont International
Rohit Bhuta Crossinvest
Rohit Ganguli EFG Bank
Sebastien Hayoz Asiaciti Trust
Simon Lints Shroders
Walter de Oude Singapore Life
David Denton Old Mutual International
James Tan Tokio Marine
Kimmis Pun VP Bank
Peter Triggs DBS Bank
Richard Vargo DBS Bank

Panel Discussions 

We held 5 interactive panel discussions throughout the day – which involved 27 senior industry practitioners who we invited to participate and share their thoughts. We have also incorporated into the summaries below the briefing notes which speakers sent to us in advance of the event. Plus, we have included the results of audience polling as well as questions we received from delegates. Click on each headline to view the PDFs.

Developing Trends in Legacy and Succession Planning for Asia’s HNW Families
A panel of eminent wealth management professionals gathered at the Hubbis Asian Wealth Solutions Forum to set the scene for the broad discussion of high-net-worth (HNW) client wealth succession in Asia. The overall conclusions were that experience in dealing with wealthy families is ever more essential, expertise in a broad array of products and solutions are vital, as is a clear understanding on the regulatory implications of onshore and offshore solutions.

Panel members
Woon Shiu Lee Managing Director, Head of Wealth Planning (Trust and Insurance), Bank of Singapore
Rohit Bhuta  Chief Executive Officer, Crossinvest
Gerard Gardner  Global Head Wealth Solutions, EFG Wealth Solutions
Cynthia Lee  Managing Director, Head of North Asia Wealth Advisory Team, JPMorgan Private Banking
Simon Lints Chief Executive Officer - Singapore, Schroders Wealth Management

Helping Wealthy Individuals Protect Themselves and their Families
Panellists met to discuss the market trends and dynamics in the high-net-worth (HNW) insurance space. While simpler products such as Universal Life (UL) have seen a downturn in sales, bespoke options that cater to the increasingly complex needs of customers are becoming highly sought-after.

Panel members
Richard Vargo  Managing Director, Bancassurance, Consumer Investment & Insurance Products, DBS Bank
Rohit Kumar Ganguli  Senior Wealth Planner, EFG Bank
James Tan  Chief Executive Officer, Tokio Marine Life Insurance
Walter de Oude  Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Life
Ian Kloss  Head of Region, South-east Asia & Chief Executive Officer, Singapore, Old Mutual International
Craig Ellis  Global Head of Products, Charles Monat

The Challenges of Transitioning Family Businesses and Wealth across Generations
Wealth managers in Asia are increasingly facing up to the challenge of retaining clients once wealth passes to the younger generations. “It is essential to build and retain what I can call the ‘emotional’ connection to the broad family,” advised one private banking head at the opening of the third panel discussion at the Hubbis

Panel members
Kimmis Pun  Managing Director, ‎Head of Private Banking, VP Bank
Michael Troth  Head of Trust and Wealth Planning and Family Office - Asia, Citi Private Bank
Tuck Meng Yee Partner, JRT Partners
Prof Gunter Dufey  Professor Emeritus of Corporate Strategy, International Business and Finance, U of Michigan Ross
Jen Cher Chew  Senior Director, Wealth Planning, DBS Private Banking
Michele Ferrario  Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, StashAway

Asia’s HNWIs and Coping with Wealth Management in a Newly Transparent World
There is no doubt that the regulatory net is closing in on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and their families across the globe. Former questionable practices of the wealth management community and their clients will no longer be tolerated. A panel of experts at the Hubbis Asian Wealth Solutions event provided their insights into how advisers and their HNWI clients must adopt strategies to prioritise compliance and transparency.

Panel members
John Shoemaker  Registered Foreign Lawyer, Butler Snow
Marcus Hinkley  Head of Private Client Services - Asia, Hawksford
Malcolm K-L Lim  Director, Sovereign Straits Trust
Zac Lucas  Founder, Head of Legal, Centenal
Mark Smallwood  Wealth Structuring and Client Advisor, HP Wealth Management

How is Singapore Expanding its Importance as a Wealth Management Centre?
Singapore is a full service international financial centre with well-devised government schemes in place to enhance its scope and reputation, as well as a commitment to low taxes. The government has done much to boost brand ‘Singapore’ and the country also offers an excellent lifestyle, good education, strong security and a reputed legal infrastructure. A panel of leading lawyers surveyed Singapore’s appeals as a wealth centre in the last panel of the Hubbis Asian Wealth Solutions event.

Panel members
Kylie Luo  Executive Director, Tax, Private Client Tax Services LeaderBDO
Dawn Quek  Principal in Tax and Wealth Management Practice, Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow
Edmund Leow  Senior Partner, Dentons
Vikna Rajah  Partner, Head of Tax, Trust & Private Client, Rajah & Tann
Woon Hum Tan  Partner, Head of Trust, Asset & Wealth Management Practice, Shook Lin & Bok

Presentations 

Below are summaries of the Presentations and Wealth TALKS delivered at the event. These were 10-minute slots hosted either by senior industry practitioners who we invited to speak (Wealth TALKS), or by some of our event partners (Presentations). Also listed with each summary are links to the presentation slides (where these are made available by speakers). Click on each headline to view the web versions of these – from which you can also access the 1-page PDFs.

Henley & Partners Highlights the Value of Overseas Residence and/or Citizenship
Nirbhay Handa, Client Advisor at Henley & Partners, highlighted his key message that there are a number of alternative residence or citizenship options within Asia and globally for Asia’s HNWIs and their families. He briefly highlighted the appeals of Thailand and Singapore or EU countries such as Malta and Cyprus and of some Caribbean jurisdictions. He strongly recommended that anyone in Asia considering these steps needs the best professional advice.

Changes in the industry
Peter Triggs, Managing Director, Regional Wealth Planning, DBS Private Bank, shares his views on changes in the industry in an exclusive interview with our CEO Michael Stanhope.

Global Precious Metals’ Mathier Extols the Virtues of Physical Gold
Nicolas Mathier, the Managing Partner of Global Precious Metals, told delegates at the Hubbis Asian Wealth Solutions event in Singapore why Asia’s wealthy investors should hold more physical gold. It offsets the volatility in the mainstream financial markets and it also offsets both the global financial system frailties and the ongoing regulatory proliferation, as it remains outside the global financial and regulatory infrastructure.

Wealth Preservation and Wealth Transfer The Role of Life Insurance Solutions
David Denton, Head of International Technical Sales for Old Mutual International, and Ian Kloss, Head of Region, South-East Asia & CEO for Singapore, are avid proponents of life insurance solutions for managing and preserving the wealth of Asia’s high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), as well as for the complex needs of wealth transfer in an increasingly regulated world.Denton and Kloss gave their insights in some considerable detail in a detailed Workshop, focusing on the HNWI clients of the assembled advisers and intermediaries, telling them in some detail how life insurance as an investment is not only a financial solution but a structuring solution that will help Asia's wealthy families preserve and transmit their wealth to their younger family members.

Revisiting Family Governance for Asia’s Wealthy
Marcus Hinkley, Head of Private Client Services for Asia at Hawksford, believes that family dynamics should always be considered by wealth management advisers when structuring a wealth succession plan. In his presentation, he highlighted the various relevant family governance issues related to wealth succession in the current global environment.

Where Next? Tax Implications of Residence Planning for Asia’s HNW families
Pierre Vanrenterghem, Manager for South East Asia at Rosemont International is an expert in advising high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and their families on the tax implications of their residence and possibly citizenship outside their countries of origin. Whether it is income tax, an assets tax, or inheritance tax, there are challenges and there are solutions, he told the audience.  

The Single-Family Office: Keeping things Simple
Sebastien Hayoz, Managing Director of Asiaciti Trust, is a keen advocate of the single-family office. But is this the preserve of the ultra-HNWI family or is it a more democratic option for a wider range of wealthy families? Hayoz explained that Asiaciti Trust is an international trust and corporate services provider offering specialised wealth management solutions to HNWIs, intermediaries, business owners and corporations.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls Faced during Multi-Generational Wealth Planning
Mark Nelligan, CEO of Pershing Securities Singapore and an expert on the subject of inter-generational wealth planning and transmission, believes wealth management advisers must help open the eyes of their Asian high-net-worth (HNW) clients to the pitfalls of unstructured wealth transition planning and the dangers of poor thought and communication. In particular, he highlighted four common pitfalls, all of which must be strenuously avoided.

‘Wealth Care’ enters a New Age enabled by Asia’s Robo-Platform Providers
By 2020, Asia’s rapidly growing ranks of mass affluent will have amassed wealth of USD43 trillion. By 2025, another estimate – from accounting firm Deloitte - states that some USD16 trillion of global wealth will be managed by digital services. Shadab Taiyabi, Senior Executive, Strategic Partnership at robo-advisory platform provider Quantifeed, showed the enthusiasm he and colleagues have in building and delivering digital wealth management systems for financial institutions across Asia, explaining that technology will help facilitate the massive transformation in wealth management to a new age that Quantifeed calls ‘Wealth Care’.

The EU’s CRS Mandatory Disclosure Rules: Implications for Wealth Advisers in Asia
Zac Lucas, Founder and Head of Legal at Centenal, believes that front-line wealth advisers in Asia need to be fully aware of the expectations, liabilities and considerations they and their clients face due to the European Union’s new regulations. He explained that Mandatory Disclosure Rules (MDRs) are currently being implemented around the world as part of the wider application of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). And these MDRs are soon heading to Asia. The new rules will create new personal liability for advisers promoting any CRS-avoidance and will, therefore, demand a level of transparency and disclosure never seen before.

Investor migration and the rise of the global citizen
Investor migration consultancy Henley & Partners presented a highly informative Workshop at the Hubbis Asian Wealth Solutions Forum to highlight some alternative overseas residence and citizenship options of appeal to Asian high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and their families. Daphne Chandra, Country Head for Indonesia and Alexis Tan, senior manager, joined forces for the presentation. The reported that there is a great and growing demand for our residency and citizenship services in Asia and that the industry is a USD3 billion business worldwide. In Asia, delegates learned, almost 26% of the population of ultra-HNWIs already hold an alternative citizenship.

UK Private Client Tax Issues and the Asian HNWI – An Analysis and Update
The UK Criminal Finances Act 2017 might seem to be dissociated from the world of Asia’s high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), but this and other invasive UK legislation of recent years have far-reaching implications, especially for those who have any assets in the UK. Gez Owen, Managing Director & General Counsel for Hubbis and Laurence Lancaster, Barrister-at-law and Group Head of Tax for international trust company Sovereign Group clarified addressed many of these matters that are potentially so relevant to Asia’s HNWIs, including the new ‘Corporate Offences of Tax Evasion’ legislation, ‘Unexplained Wealth Orders’ and others.