Singapore and Hong Kong: the Asian benchmark

Growth of the asset management industry

Singapore is the centre that Swiss bankers have studied most closely since the early 2000s, because it combined a stable legal order, a strong currency, low taxes and a policy of attracting private wealth that resembled the Swiss model. Many Swiss banks have built their Asian booking centres there. In the GFCI of March 2026 Singapore ranked fourth, one rating point behind Hong Kong and two behind London.¹ The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which combines the functions of central bank and integrated financial supervisor, reported in its Asset Management Survey for 2024 that assets under management in Singapore had grown by 12.2 per cent to a record of SGD 6.1 trillion, about USD 4.7 trillion. Net inflows rose to SGD 290 billion from SGD 193 billion a year earlier. The survey counted some 1,200 variable capital companies, Singapore's corporate fund vehicle, with 2,695 sub-funds.² The figures are not directly comparable with the Swiss statistics, because the Singapore survey covers all assets managed by firms in Singapore, including institutional mandates and funds, and a large part of these assets is booked elsewhere. They show nonetheless a centre of a size between those of Geneva and Zurich in asset management, with a growth rate well above that of the Swiss industry. Hong Kong, which drew level with Switzerland as the largest centre for cross-border private wealth in 2025, grew even faster on the strength of inflows from mainland China and the recovery of its stock market.³ For Lugano, whose clients are overwhelmingly European, the Asian centres are competitors only indirectly. They matter as benchmarks of regulatory policy and as the destinations to which Swiss banking groups have shifted growth, staff and investment.

Family offices: the 13O and 13U regimes

Singapore's most visible policy instrument for private wealth is the tax incentive for funds managed by single family offices under Sections 13O and 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947. A fund that meets the conditions is exempt from tax on specified income from designated investments. The conditions include a minimum size of the fund, a minimum number of investment professionals employed in Singapore, a minimum level of local business spending and a share of investments in Singapore-listed equities, local funds or other qualifying local assets.⁴ The number of single family offices benefiting from these incentives rose from about 400 at the end of 2020 to more than 2,000 at the end of 2024, according to the reply of the Deputy Prime Minister and MAS chairman Gan Kim Yong to a parliamentary question on 5 February 2025. These offices employed about 2,200 Singapore citizens and permanent residents. MAS announced that single family offices, which were exempt from licensing, would be brought within a class exemption framework that requires notification and compliance with rules against money laundering.⁵

The comparison with Switzerland is instructive. Switzerland has no specific tax regime for family offices and no register of them. A single family office in Lugano that manages only the assets of one family requires no authorization under the Financial Institutions Act, as Chapter E.III has explained, while a multi-family office must be authorized as an asset manager or trustee. The Swiss approach relies on the general tax system, including taxation according to expenditure for the family members, and on the general law of financial institutions. Singapore's approach uses targeted incentives tied to local employment and local investment. It has produced rapid growth together with a concentration of wealth of uncertain origin, which led to the most serious money laundering case in the city's history.

Notes

1. GFCI 39 (above), Table 1. ↩
2. "Singapore's Asset Management Industry Hits Record High", finews.asia, 16 July 2025, https://www.finews.asia/finance/43630-monetary-authority-of-singapore-mas-aum-assets-under-management-asset-management-2024, reporting MAS, Singapore Asset Management Survey 2024 . ↩
3. Private Banker International (above). ↩
4. Income Tax Act 1947, ss. 13O and 13U, and the MAS circulars on the tax incentive schemes for funds managed by Singapore-based fund managers, including minimum fund sizes of SGD 20 million (13O) and SGD 50 million (13U). ↩
5. "Singapore MAS Chairman Gan Kim Yong on family offices", Caproasia, 6 February 2025, https://www.caproasia.com/2025/02/06/singapore-mas-chairman-gan-kim-yong-on-family-offices-2000-single-family-offices-awarded-tax-incentives-employ-2200-singapore-citizens-permanent-residents/; "Singapore's single family offices climbed to 2,000 last year, minister says", Malay Mail, 17 January 2025, https://www.malaymail.com/news/singapore/2025/01/17/singapores-single-family-offices-climbed-to-2000-last-year-minister-says/163523. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.