Singapore will continue to welcome “legitimate wealth”, “genuine investments” and “complementary international talent” from around the world, says Chee Hong Tat, who was speaking at the Global-Asia family office summit on Sept 16.
Chee, who is the Minister for Transport, Second Minister for Finance and the deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), was also speaking at the Securities Investors Association Singapore’s (SIAS) 25th anniversary corporate governance conference earlier on the same day, where he said that revitalising Singapore’s equities market wasn’t “an easy task”.
At the Global-Asia family office summit, Chee adds that the country must remain “open, welcoming, stable and secure” to differentiate itself amid a turbulent and disruptive external environment.
In 2024, the number of new single family offices are expected to grow beyond the 300 added in 2023.
“The family office community in Singapore is a vibrant and growing space,” says Chee. From 400 single family offices that were awarded tax incentives by the MAS as at 2020, the number of single family offices grew by 3.5 times to 1,400 at the end of 2023.
In the first eight months this year, Singapore added another 250 to reach 1,650 single family offices in the country.
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“Growth has continued to be robust, and we expect the number of new single family offices for 2024 to surpass the 300 that we added in 2023,” Chee notes.
In his speech, Chee welcomed the new family offices, adding that they have joined the country “at a good time” when Asia’s prospects are “bright” and the growth momentum remains “strong”.
“The Asia Pacific region is expected to grow by 4.9% in 2025, faster than any other part of the world. And Singapore as a hub in Asia will benefit from this positive development, growing together with our region,” he says.
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To this end, local and global banks such as the Bank of Singapore (BoS), United Overseas Bank U11 (UOB), Citi, HSBC and Nomura, have announced that they will be expanding their wealth teams and offerings in Singapore, Chee points out. This is in line with the findings from an MAS survey, conducted with a group of leading private banks, which showed that client assets in the 1Q2024 grew by 9.5% y-o-y. BCG’s Global Wealth Report also said that Singapore would grow by 8.5% per annum (p.a.) between 2023 to 2028, a rate that is faster than any other global wealth centres.
Singapore remains a “trusted” financial centre and is a “well-regarded” destination for asset and wealth management, Chee adds, with the country’s growth in wealth assets under management (AUM) growing by over 8% in 2023. Singapore’s five-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of wealth management AUM came up to about 10%, he notes.
“Wealth owners choose Singapore for many reasons – our strong rule of law, robust and predictable regulatory regime and a comprehensive ecosystem of wealth managers and professional service providers are also some of the reasons,” he says.
