White Paper - Asia at the tipping point? Creating a sustainable wealth management industry

Hubbis

Oct 1, 2013

Download PDF

In October 2013, Hubbis, on behalf of the Asian Wealth Management Association, published a White Paper entitled "Asia at the tipping point? Creating a sustainable wealth management industry".

The inflection point at which Asian wealth management now finds itself is a direct symptom of the business models, incentive structures and mind-sets which have developed within the industry, region-wide, over the past 15 to 20 years. More broadly, the widely fragmented nature of wealth management has hampered efforts to date to collectively tackle some of the fundamental issues, such as compliance, costs, clients and sustainability.

But now there is increasing urgency within individual firms – as well as the industry as a whole – to take action quickly. This reflects the views of more than 100 senior practitioners - with whom Hubbis interacted, in conjunction with the Asian Wealth Management Association, at a series of committee meetings in Singapore, Hong Kong, India and Malaysia in August and September – as well as at Hubbis’ Asian Wealth Management Forum 2013 in Singapore in late September.

In short, a more “professional” approach is essential to servicing clients, by providing advice and solutions which are genuinely in their best interests.

For example, while bankers and financial advisers are aware of exactly how much compensation (commission, fees, etc) they get paid, how many of them in Asia know whether their clients get any value for money? So transparency, investment performance and trust continue to be in the spotlight. The value that some firms and individuals bring to clients is undisputable. But those organisations and individuals who cannot make the paradigm shift from success being based on relationships to it being based instead on advice won’t last for much longer.