Asia’s rich confident in advisors, regulators

Asia-Pacific’s rich are confident in the wealth management industry and its ability to generate wealth in the near future, finds this year’s Global HNW Insights Survey.

In fact, 69.4% have high confidence in financial markets and 72.2% in regulators, compared to just 44.6% and 38.3% of wealthy people in other regions. The wealthy in India and China have the highest trust levels, followed, by those in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Japan’s rich proved an exception to the overall confidence trend, with less than a third trusting key industry stakeholders.

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Further, the outlook of the rich in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, is extremely positive, with 90.5% confident they can build wealth in the near future, led by those in India at 95.7% and China at 95.2%.

Fortunately for advisors, the population and wealth of Asia-Pacific’s high net worth individuals rose at double and triple the rates of their counterparts in the rest of world between 2007 and 2012, finds the Asia-Pacific Wealth Report 2013.

In 2012, Asia-Pacific’s rich population expanded by 9.4% to reach 3.68 million, and their wealth went up by 12.2% to reach US$12 trillion, contributing to record high levels of global personal wealth.

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North America edged out Asia-Pacific as the largest wealth market by population, growing by 11.5% to reach 3.73 million. But the report notes that Asia-Pacific is expected to reclaim top spot in the near future, driven by strong projected personal wealth growth at 9.8% annually to reach an anticipated US$15.9 trillion by 2015.

RBC Wealth Management and Capgemini sponsored the Asia-Pacific wealth report.

While all Asia-Pacific markets expanded in 2012, growth varied across countries, reflecting unique economic policies, the pace of reform, regulatory developments, and investor preferences and behaviors.

Hong Kong and India experienced the most significant gains in their rich populations and wealth in 2012, following steep declines in 2011. Hong Kong’s rich population grew by 35.7% and their wealth by 37.2%, while India’s population grew by 22.2% and their wealth by 23.4%.

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Japan and Taiwan were the only markets to experience single-digit increases in their rich populations, though both still showed steady growth at 4.4% and 7.0% respectively.

Growth in Asia-Pacific’s ultra-rich population and its wealth, at 15.4% and 17.8%, was the highest among all wealth bands. It significantly exceeded gains made by the ultra-rich in the rest of the world, who expanded in number by 9.7% and wealth by 9.4%.

View the infographic here.