Evolving focuses

Global investment ambitions, due diligence and tax reporting remain high on the agenda for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in Asia. International finance centres (IFCs) that can offer a robust approach in all of these areas will continue to find favour among Asian advisers.

That was a key message to come out of Jersey Finance's latest program of activity in Asia; a series of roadshow events in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore that were attended by more than 200 senior financial services practitioners, lawyers, investors and members of the advisory community.

Entitled 'Mapping the Future', the events built on Jersey Finance's inaugural Asia roadshows in November 2014 and featured a number of expert speakers from industry, the Jersey Government and Jersey Finance.

There's no doubt that Asia is an evolving but vitally important region. Figures show that wealth continues to migrate East with almost $16trn now held by HNWIs in the Asia Pacific region (World Wealth Report 2015), with the region edging past North America in 2014 to become the area with the most HNWIs at 4.7 million.

Such shifts in wealth are prompting private clients in Asia to consider their asset protection strategies, but also increasingly to seek efficient means of deploying investment capital globally into diverse areas and markets.

Investors in Asia have traditionally looked to harness the strengths of IFCs to manage and protect their wealth, which is a trend that is expected to continue. In recent times Jersey has seen growth in multi-generational and multi-jurisdictional family and estate planning business, driven in no small part by demand from families in Asia.

The private client landscape, however, continues to evolve across Asia, with investors who were solely looking for asset protection and estate planning services now also seeking a springboard to further diversify into new sectors and markets. Access to western markets and niche alternative investment opportunities through well-regulated and established centres for example, have shot up the wish list among HNWIs.

This convergence of private client and investment business has meant that access to alternative investments and emerging markets is in increasing demand, and this is great news for Jersey, which has significant experience in these areas. Attendees at the Asia Roadshows, for example, were impressed by the performance of Jersey's alternative funds business, which has grown over 11 per cent over the past twelve months.

While the trend for Asian private clients to increasingly harbour global investment ambitions was a key topic of debate at the Asia Roadshows, a range of other private client issues were also discussed, with investors still clearly cautious about global regulatory upheaval and market volatility.

It was clear throughout the events that automatic exchange of information, due diligence, money laundering and tax reporting, against the backdrop of the introduction of the OECD's Common Reporting Standard, all remain key issues among Asian private clients. It was pleasing that Jersey's approach in these areas found real favour among attendees at the Roadshows.

Robust regulation in Asia is quite rightly a major selling point. It is now undoubtedly the case that private clients are increasingly looking not only to IFCs that can clearly demonstrate high levels of stability and substance, but those that also have an appropriate approach to confidentiality when formulating strategies.

In an extremely complex landscape, Jersey has been able to adopt a leading stance in these areas, being one of the best regulated IFCs globally, a status acknowledged by independent assessments from some of the world's leading bodies such as the OECD and the IMF. As such, the extremely positive reception Jersey got during Asia Roadshows was very welcome and a good indication of just how well the jurisdiction is perceived in the vitally important, and evolving Asia region.

Geoff Cook is the CEO of Jersey Finance

He writes a regular blog about Jersey for Private Client Adviser