The New Rules of Global Wealth

A recent article in «Spear’s» caught my attention because the numbers reveal something I have been observing for some time: wealth is growing strongly, but traditional wealth managers are not necessarily benefiting from that growth.

According to Spear’s, citing Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026, global high-net-worth wealth increased by 8.7 percent in 2025 to a record $98.3 trillion. Yet wealthy clients are increasingly spreading their assets across several providers. Only 19 percent used a single wealth manager in 2025, compared with 39 percent in 2019. Around $1.5 trillion in potential assets under management is moving towards family offices, independent advisers and technology-led platforms.

More Wealth, but Less Loyalty

For me, this is a remarkable contradiction. The wealth-management market has rarely offered such attractive growth prospects, yet clients appear less willing than ever to entrust everything to one institution.

The explanation is not difficult to understand. Spear’s reports that only 17 per cent of wealthy clients believe the advice they receive is seamless and genuinely tailored to their situation, while 42 per cent say they repeatedly have to explain their goals and preferences. At the same time, 60 per cent of executives admit that their firms lack a unified view of their clients.

Personalisation Is Becoming the Baseline

This tells me that the problem is not primarily about products. Wealthy clients can find good investment products almost everywhere today. What they increasingly expect is coordination, personalisation and an adviser who understands the entirety of their financial life.

«Spear’s» quotes Gareth Wilson of global consultancy Capgemini saying that «hyperpersonalisation has become the new baseline» in client-facing wealth management. I think that sentence captures the challenge extremely well. Many banks still segment clients largely according to wealth bands and relatively static risk profiles, while clients themselves increasingly expect something much more individual.

Technology Should Make Banking More Human

Interestingly, the answer is not simply more technology. AI can help relationship managers understand clients better, anticipate needs and spend less time on administrative work. Spear’s notes that relationship managers currently devote 41 percent of their time to operational tasks rather than client engagement.

And this brings me to what I consider the most important conclusion. As products become more interchangeable and algorithms more powerful, the human relationship actually becomes more valuable. Luca Russignan of Capgemini puts it very well in the «Spear’s» article: «The one thing competitors cannot replicate is the quality of the human relationship.»

Reading EY’s latest analysis of the ten priorities shaping the future of wealth management, one conclusion stands out to me: almost every part of the traditional wealth-management model is being challenged at the same time.

AI is changing how advice is produced and delivered. More investors are becoming self-directed. Private markets are moving further into mainstream portfolios. Pricing is coming under pressure, clients expect greater transparency about their real net returns, and wealth managers increasingly need to understand different client groups rather than simply segmenting them according to assets under management.

EY describes these developments as structural changes to the industry’s traditional mechanisms of value creation.

When Technology Makes Advice Less Scarce

I find EY’s assessment of AI particularly important. The study argues that AI could enable wealth planning at scale while simultaneously making standard investment advice less valuable. As more clients use AI themselves, the premium will increasingly shift towards areas where human judgement, accountability and complexity really matter.

This corresponds closely with what I observe in wealth management today. Technology will make many services faster, cheaper and more personalized. But that does not automatically make the relationship between a client and a bank more valuable. Quite the opposite: as information and investment tools become widely available, banks will have to demonstrate much more clearly why clients should continue to trust them with their wealth.

Trust Remains the Decisive Factor

EY expresses this very well at the end of its study: «clients’ fundamental needs remain unchanged: a relationship they can trust and support they can rely on at critical and complex moments.»

For me, this may be the most important message in the entire report. Wealth management is becoming more digital, more automated and more sophisticated. Yet its ultimate competitive advantage may become increasingly human.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, has put forward in an «X» post a simple but provocative idea: «tokenize everything.» His argument is that countries and companies could use tokenization not only to raise capital, but also to attract foreign investors by making shares and other real-world assets digitally accessible to investors around the globe.

I find this particularly interesting because it takes tokenization far beyond the usual crypto discussion. It suggests that blockchain technology could eventually become part of the infrastructure through which countries compete for international capital. A company, infrastructure project, property portfolio or other asset could theoretically be divided into digital units and offered to a much broader international investor base.

Disrupting the Distribution

Of course, the technology alone will not create investment. Tokenized securities remain securities, and questions around regulation, ownership rights, custody, disclosure and investor protection do not disappear simply because an asset moves onto a blockchain. Nor does every foreign purchase of a tokenized asset qualify as foreign direct investment,

But I believe CZ is pointing towards something important. Tokenization could fundamentally change the distribution of financial assets. According to «Crypto.News», it could lower barriers, broaden access and connect issuers with pools of capital that were previously difficult to reach.

Where the Real Transformation Begins

For financial centres, banks and wealth managers, the question may therefore increasingly be not whether tokenization will become relevant, but how quickly they can integrate it into the traditional financial system without sacrificing trust, transparency and legal certainty. That is where, in my view, the real transformation begins.

What I find most striking in Barry Eichengreen’s assessment is that he is not predicting the imminent demise of the US dollar. Quite the opposite: for many years, the Berkeley economist argued that the dollar’s dominant role would erode only gradually. What has changed is his concern that confidence could now disappear much faster than the alternatives can develop, according to an interview with «Kitco News».

The numbers still suggest evolution rather than revolution. The dollar’s share of global foreign-exchange reserves has fallen from more than 70 percent around the turn of the century to below 60 percent today. Interestingly, the main beneficiaries have not been the euro or even the Chinese renminbi, but smaller currencies from countries such as Australia, Canada, Singapore and the Nordic economies.

History Tells

For me, this is the most important point: reserve currencies ultimately depend on trust. Investors and central banks need to believe not only in the economic strength of a country, but also in the reliability of its institutions, the liquidity of its markets and the predictability of its policies.

The dollar still enjoys enormous advantages, not least the depth of the US Treasury market and the absence of a convincing alternative. But history tells us that such privileges should never be taken for granted. Eichengreen himself now worries that political intervention, concerns about Treasury-market fragility and questions surrounding the future independence and credibility of US monetary policy could accelerate a change that was previously expected to take decades.

Difficult Rebuilding

That is why I would not describe this as the end of the dollar. It is a warning about the value of credibility. Once trust in a financial system begins to weaken, rebuilding it can be far more difficult than losing it in the first place. The same applies to trust in international financial centers.

For years, the rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong as Asia’s leading wealth-management centres has largely been measured in assets under management, private-bank inflows and the number of family offices setting up shop.

What I find interesting about the latest developments is that this competition is becoming much more direct. It is increasingly about the people behind the money: fund managers, investment professionals and the individuals who ultimately decide where capital is allocated.

Difficult to Misunderstand

Hong Kong has clearly raised the stakes. In June, the government proposed significant enhancements to its preferential tax regimes for funds, single family offices and carried interest, explicitly stating that it wants to attract more funds and family offices to the city. Among other measures, Hong Kong wants to broaden the range of qualifying investments and extend the scope of its carried-interest concessions.

The message is difficult to misunderstand: Hong Kong wants not only more assets, but more investment activity and more highly paid investment professionals.

Singapore Responds

Singapore has now answered. On 19 August, the government announced plans for a tax exemption on qualifying profit-related returns earned by fund managers, including those managing funds for single family offices.

At the same time, the Monetary Authority of Singapore is preparing an investment programme aimed at hedge funds that establish or expand their presence in the city, while access to Singapore’s five-year Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass will be widened for investment-management professionals. News wire «Reuters» explicitly described the measures as an effort to strengthen Singapore’s position against Hong Kong.

Something Important

What strikes me is how quickly tax policy has become a competitive instrument. Hong Kong’s proposed treatment of performance-related compensation had created a potentially substantial tax advantage for some managers. The concern in Singapore was no longer theoretical: industry representatives warned that firms could consider shifting personnel and activities to Hong Kong.

Singapore’s response therefore tells us something important. In global wealth management, it is no longer enough to provide political stability, good regulation and an attractive place to live. Financial centres increasingly have to compete for individual talent almost as aggressively as companies do.

More Than a Tax Competition

I would nevertheless hesitate to describe this simply as a tax race. The real contest is about creating an ecosystem in which wealth is not merely booked but actually managed. Hong Kong has the enormous advantage of its proximity and access to mainland China and continues to position itself as a gateway for Chinese capital.

Singapore, meanwhile, has developed a particularly strong position among Southeast Asian and international families and offers a combination of institutional stability, global connectivity and access to the rapidly growing ASEAN economies.

Creating the Most Compelling Environment

That is why I believe the latest developments mark an interesting new phase in the relationship between the two financial centres. Singapore and Hong Kong have competed for wealthy families for years; now they are increasingly competing for the investment professionals, hedge funds, family offices and decision-making functions surrounding those families.

Ultimately, the winner may not be the centre offering the lowest tax rate. It will be the one that succeeds in creating the most compelling environment for the people who decide where the money goes.