from 2024, Hong Kong's "New Capital Investor Entrance Scheme" (CIES) ) was relaunched and has attracted over 1,200 applications in just one year, and is expected to bring in HK$37 billion in direct investment. After the plan was optimized, the number of applications in March alone surged by 440% in 2025. This intensive application is essentially a direct vote for the restoration of the Hong Kong asset platform. For DBS, these data are not macro references, but direct business feedback. According to Angela Mo, head of retail and wealth management for DBS Hong Kong, since the beginning of the year, DBS Hong Kong's wealth management business revenue has increased by 86% year-on-year, and the proportion of cross-border customers has increased from 20% five years ago to nearly 40%. Deeper signs of recovery are also reflected in changes in the wealth structure. According to the 2024 industry report jointly released by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the Private Wealth Management Association, more than one-third of the surveyed institutions stated that the main source of their new customer assets is mainland China, and this proportion is continuing to rise. At the same time, from 2023 to 2024, the total value of cryptocurrency transactions in Hong Kong increased by 85.6%, ranking first in East Asia; and virtual assets ETFs After the approval, retail investors' willingness to participate has also substantially recovered.
And DBS's response strategy is clear: not only does it continue to expand the network of Hong Kong's wealth management centers, it also implements a plan to expand the number of account managers internally, and launches the "real-time foreign exchange trading" function, connecting the mobile terminal7x24hours foreign exchange trading to the bank's main platform, achieving more flexible cross-border configuration capabilities.
An often overlooked signal is that in May 2024, DBS Bank (Hong Kong) was officially approved to become a member of the interbank foreign currency market of the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center. This means that it can directly participate in foreign currency lending and repurchase business in China, and play a higher-level intermediary role in the internationalization of the RMB and the cross-border settlement network. DBS did not publicize this progress in a high-profile manner, but for those familiar with China's capital structure, such qualifications are often more strategic than marketing.
At the same time, DBS Hong Kong executives have confirmed that they are applying for a crypto asset service license in Hong Kong. This complements its mature crypto trading platform in Singapore. In an interview, DBS North Asia head Pang Huayi said that Hong Kong's supervision is clearer and its policies are more clear. In the future, it will provide wealth customers with "a small part of the portfolio" of crypto assets, rather than attacking the virtual currency market with all its strength - this is a cautious and precise strategy with clear service targets and controllable risks, which is in line with the actual needs of high-net-worth customers to "increase allocation of digital assets" but "control risk exposure".
In an environment where macro risks have not dissipated and risk aversion still exists, Hong Kong, a "financial bridgehead", has reconnected the capital flow between Chinese wealth and the global market, and DBS is one of the earliest foreign bank pioneers to respond strategically.
The new rich in the mainland are moving south:A dual choice of risk aversion and reallocation
If DBS's layout is a forward-looking judgment of the trend by an institution, then the scene of a large amount of mainland funds flowing south to Hong Kong in the past year is more like the real answer given by the market.
Since 2023, the asset allocation of the wealthy people in the mainland has begun to quietly shift. Affected by factors such as the downturn in the real estate market and the decline in financial management returns, the traditional asset portfolio is gradually losing its appeal. At the same time, the fluctuation of RMB exchange rate, tightening regulation and shrinking channels for asset allocation at home and abroad have also caused many investors to have new concerns about the security and long-term stability of wealth. They began to look for an asset transit point with both institutional transparency, cross-border liquidity and diversified allocation capabilities - Hong Kong has once again entered their field of vision.
The latest data is enough to illustrate the problem. 2024In April 2024In April 2.0”, after the relaxation of “Cross-border Wealth Management Connect”, the net inflow of northbound funds reached HKD22.3 billion, almost twice that of the previous month. In the eyes of some private bank account managers, this is not a simple arbitrage, but the beginning of "asset shuffling". Among this group of customers, the fastest growing group is not the traditional ultra-high net worth group, but the so-called "sub-high net worth group" - the new middle class or business owners with assets between 500,000 and 1000,000 US dollars. Their wealth is still in the accumulation stage, and they have higher requirements for the compliance, flexibility and inheritance of assets, and have become the focus of major private banks. The Hong Kong Private Wealth Management Association predicts that in the next five years, the proportion of this group in the customer structure will increase from 20% to 28%. The flow of funds has also changed significantly. In a low-interest rate environment, local banks in Hong Kong once offered a fixed deposit rate of 10% annualized return, which became an important tool for many mainland investors to hedge against the depreciation of the RMB. At the same time, the attractiveness of Hong Kong insurance products continues to increase, not only because of the level of returns, but also because of its legitimacy and certainty in cross-border wealth inheritance. Against the backdrop of increasingly restricted outflows of mainland assets, Hong Kong has become one of the few regions that still has clear policy space. The account opening data of major banks confirms this trend. HSBC Hong Kong said that its number of new accounts opened in 2023 has more than doubled compared with before the epidemic, and the vast majority of them are mainland customers; Citi, UBS and other institutions have also recently increased the allocation of resources specifically for family offices. Customer portraits show that they are more concerned about the "structural reallocation" of long-term assets - no longer choosing which product, but how to complete a package of planning including foreign currency assets, tax arrangements, legal structure and inheritance intentions in Hong Kong. The key to Hong Kong's ability to attract these customers lies in its unique intersection ability: it can connect the RMB and US dollar systems, and has mature trust legal services and an open investment product pool. Simply put, it is still the only interface that can legally connect Chinese assets with the global market.
For DBS, the arrival of this type of "new rich customers" is not a surprise, but an opportunity for a new round of customer structure reconstruction. From customized management services for ultra-high net worth customers to a wider range of medium and high net worth customer groups, private banks such as DBS are redefining their value chain. And Hong Kong happens to provide all the conditions required to complete this role transformation.
Virtual assets “rectify their name”: Becoming the “new foundation” of wealth management in Hong Kong
An insider from DBS revealed at this year’s Asian Private Bankers Conference that clients’ attention on virtual assets is gradually shifting from their speculative attributes to their complementary potential with traditional asset portfolios. What he mentioned was not the surge in any cryptocurrency, but Hong Kong's advancement in stablecoins, asset tokenization (the so-called tokenization is to turn "bulky" assets such as real estate, artworks and even private equity into "digital building blocks" that can be easily circulated on the blockchain) and ETFs. These are sending a signal that is more important than cryptocurrency itself - the evolution of financial infrastructure has affected the logic of private wealth allocation.
Indeed, from 2023 to 2024, Hong Kong's pace in virtual asset regulation can be regarded as the most systematic and enforceable model in East Asia. The most important development is that in April 2024, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission approved the listing of three spot Bitcoin ETFs, setting a precedent in the Asia-Pacific region. This does not mean that retail investors are flocking to speculate in cryptocurrencies, but that institutions and high-net-worth clients have finally obtained a traceable, regulated and compliant digital asset allocation channel.
Customers also showed a strong interest in virtual currencies. According to the "Hong Kong Private Wealth Management Report 2024", the total amount of cryptocurrency transactions in Hong Kong increased by
85.6%in the past year, ranking first in East Asia. Among the customer's interest preferences, the proportion of the three emerging asset categories of "artificial intelligence", "biotechnology" and "virtual currency" continued to rise, indicating that high-net-worth individuals are paying more and more attention to the configuration portfolio outside of traditional assets. Especially in the current high interest rate environment of the US dollar, most wealthy Asian clients are less willing to allocate US bonds and traditional bonds. They prefer to seek asset forms that are more growth-oriented and can bypass the US dollar settlement path to some extent. This is why the topic of "stablecoin" has been repeatedly mentioned within private banks such as DBS.
It is not because of its currency price fluctuations, but because it is a technical intermediary for cross-border settlement and has the potential to bypass the US dollar and realize large-scale transactions in offshore RMB. To some extent, behind the stablecoin is the "new infrastructure" of RMB internationalization.
For example, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has promoted the establishment of a stablecoin issuance sandbox, clarifying the reserve requirements, cross-border payment rules and on-chain audit mechanisms. This provides banks, including DBS, with technical and compliance space to build their own "digital Hong Kong dollar channel" or "on-chain cross-border asset pool" to systematize, transparentize and structure the originally fragmented asset allocation behavior.
DBS is not a bystander. Its North Asia chairman Pang Huayi once publicly stated that Hong Kong's regulatory clarity is a prerequisite for its promotion of virtual asset services, and they are considering applying for relevant licenses so that customers can directly access digital assets within the DBS account system. Although this strategy is not radical, it reveals the common judgment of Hong Kong financial institutions: the value of virtual assets is not a new round of speculation, but an extension tool for traditional private banking services.
What is more noteworthy is that Hong Kong's "stable currency +asset tokenization +ETF " trinity layout is not just talking to itself, but building a set of regulatory language that is understood, accepted and even expected by international capital. The signal it sends to private banks is clear: you can rest assured to conduct compliant business and meet customer needs here, and supervision will cover you.
In this sense, virtual assets are not the "protagonist" in the title of this article, but they are indeed a key foundation for promoting the upgrading of Hong Kong's wealth management system. It carries the reconstruction of non-US dollar asset allocation channels and is an institutional self-construction of the Asian financial system under the US dollar-dominated pattern.
Hong Kong with the rise of alternative assets and non-US dollar allocation
High interest rates, US dollar fluctuations and cycle mismatches are forcing private banks to re-examine the traditional asset allocation logic. The 60/40 strategy, which was previously regarded as a template for a stable portfolio, is gradually becoming ineffective - the hedging relationship between stocks and bonds is weakening, and more and more clients are beginning to introduce more defensive and diversified assets.
James Cheo, Head of Wealth Investments for Southeast Asia and India at HSBC, pointed out at the Global Private Banker Summit that the future asset portfolio should shift towards “
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