Private Banking Is Growth Industry In Hong Kong, Report Reveals

by Carla Johnson, Investors Offshore.com

29 March 2002

According to a report in the South China Morning Post last week, private banking in Hong Kong is expanding rapidly, despite recent economic uncertainty on both a global and regional level.

Indeed, SAR bankers questioned by the paper revealed that the global downturn and the slump in share and property markets in Hong Kong have made wealthy residents even more eager to benefit from financial advice, diversify their investments offshore, and look at new products.

A survey conducted in 2000 showed that the number of people in Hong Kong with more than US$100,000 in liquid assets rose from 96,000 in 1995 to 177,000 two years ago. However, the latest Merrill Lynch/Gemini Consulting Wealth Report puts the figure higher than that, estimating that there are around 1.7 million high net worth individuals in Asia, holding a total wealth of US$5.4 trillion.

Speaking to the SCMP, Daniel Truchi, the Chief Executive of SG Private Banking confirmed that although the region's private banks had been hit by the recent economic conditions, uncertainty had merely served to slow the growth of the industry, not to halt it altogether.

'The pace of growth of the wealth cycle has contracted,' he explained. We are still seeing an expansion of the market but at a slower rate than we saw in the early part of the nineties.'

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