HK will bring the crown of wealth center from Switzerland
Staff reporter and Reuters
According to a government-appointed advisory body, Hong Kong is set to overtake Switzerland next year to become the world’s largest center for cross-border wealth management by assets under management.
In its latest report, the Financial Services Development Council has proposed improvements to the existing regulations to seize future opportunities, says its chairman Laurence Li Lu-jen.
The report primarily focuses on five areas: know-your-customer practices, professional investor regime, eligibility framework, tax treatment, and education and talent development.
The recommendations include aligning KYC regulations with other regulations, including combating money laundering across the financial services industry.
It is also proposed to introduce a more differentiated classification for professional investors and a higher wealth-based test for professional investors, where suitability obligations could be exempted.
The introduction of tax treatments favorable to the private wealth management industry may also be considered, the FSDC report said.
That came as a total of 8,600 applications to leave the Mandatory Provident Fund for permanent departure from the city were made in the second quarter, up 14.7 percent from the previous quarter, government data showed yesterday.
Residents leaving Hong Kong for good withdrawed a total of HK$2.114 billion from their retirement accounts in the April-June period, up 5 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Curbs designed to control the spread of Covid are partly blamed for a net outflow of 113,200 people from Hong Kong between mid-2021 and mid-2022, government estimates say.
The Mandatory Provident Fund Scheme Authority said that sometimes multiple claims are made by a single person as a scheme member may have more than one account in the MPF scheme.
In other news, Hong Kong’s foreign exchange reserves stood at US$431.8 billion (HK$3.37 trillion) at the end of last month, down US$10 billion from July, according to data from the de facto Central Bank of the City.
Separately, Finance Minister Paul Chan Mo-po said yesterday that developing the Greater Bay Area will make Hong Kong more integrated with the country’s overall development.
Economic integration can be facilitated as cross-border infrastructure between Hong Kong and other Greater Bay Area cities has been completed in recent years, he added.