While Singapore scrutinises, Hong Kong wins back wealthy Chinese

Hong Kong is expected to welcome about 200 high-net worth individuals this year after five years of millionaires skipping town, according to data provided by intelligence firm New World Wealth and immigration consultancy Henley & Partners, thanks to initiatives including family office tax concessions and visa and residency programmes.

Private bankers and service providers who were interviewed for this article requested not to be named because the information discussed was private.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore in April introduced a digital platform to share customer information to combat money laundering. Since then, a service provider in Hong Kong said it received more than 15 inquiries from wealthy Chinese seeking to move or set up family offices in the city. Half those inquiries already resulted in actual business, they said.

“For many of the mainland billionaires, because they don’t like the arbitrary government interventions or government checks or threats to their personal wealth, that’s why they wanted to move money out of China,” said Zhiwu Chen, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong. “If Singapore would do as many checks and tighter regulations as the mainland, then why would they want to go there?”

Chen said he knows billionaires who have “warmed up” to basing more of their family office business in Hong Kong as their enthusiasm for Singapore has waned.

In Hong Kong, business at the China desks of private banks has picked up while the pace of growth at the same groups in Singapore has slowed, meaning less money is moving to Singapore, according to two senior private bankers.

“Despite the political changes in Hong Kong and a number of challenges associated with that, there remain meaningful