Hong Kong on track to become world’s top wealth hub

Hong Kong is now on track to be the world’s largest cross-border wealth management centre by assets under management, overtaking Switzerland as soon as next year. To embrace this opportunity, the Financial Services Development Council, created by the Hong Kong government, has proposed enhancements to existing regimes in its latest report. The report mainly focuses on five areas: know-your-customer practices, professional investor regime, suitability framework, tax treatments, and education and talent development. The recommendations include aligning the KYC regimes with other regimes, including anti-money laundering across the financial services industry. The advisory body also suggests introducing a sophisticated professional investor classification and a higher asset-based professional investor test in which suitability obligations could be exempted.