Singapore has a long track-record as a center for the management of multi-generational family wealth, and at SuisseTechPartners we are delighted to be able to fully service the Singaporean market with our leading PMplus™ solution, delivered via an outstanding local data center provider. Utilizing our multi-decade experience in the Swiss multi-family office service industry, we established our capabilities in Singapore over three years ago to service the increasing demand for sophisticated asset management and wealth technology in Asia.
The growth of the asset management business in Singapore is legendary. In 1992, Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, set out his vision to transform Singapore into a leading financial center, which began with enhancing the banking industry, followed by the asset management industry. In 1994, Singapore started to liberalize the sector to allow more offshore investment, and eventually opened the local market to foreign players. In 2002 Singapore announced additional strategies to encourage further growth within the financial services sector.
According to research by PWC (as noted below), the rate of growth of the industry in Singapore has been considerable.
As noted in the PWC infographic, by early 2020, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) launched the “Variable Capital Company” (VCC), a new corporate entity structure for all types of funds in the jurisdiction. In summary, this new setup served as a structure for both open and closed-ended investment funds in Singapore. It provided a new legal entity as well as a fund structure and can be used for mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity or real estate funds. The net effect was to encourage the re-domicile of fund entities to Singapore from overseas locations, and thus contribute to the growth of the local industry through additional expertise and capabilities, which are also additive to the single and multi-family office businesses in Singapore.
As we emerge from the pandemic (April 2022), Singapore continues to assert its global attractiveness with stringent but balanced regulation and SuisseTechPartners is there to provide our market-leading services. The country’s strong infrastructure and attractive tax system, including many global double-taxation agreements, have developed it into a leading fund management center, where families and institutions can successfully manage all of their fund and separately-managed account operations. With one of the most competitive tax regimes in the world, including no capital gains or estate tax, along with various incentive schemes, Singapore has attracted many such wealth investors. Singapore’s financial licensing frameworks, together with its transparent reporting standards (not dissimilar to that of Europe and the US), has led to fast growth of its locally-grown talent that is necessary to operate family wealth offices.
Traditionally, Singapore was primarily a destination for Asian “High Net Worth” (HNW) families, but over the past decade, the domicile of wealthy families setting up in Singapore has diversified, with a growing number of European families interested in the jurisdiction. For providers of wealth and asset management technology, such as SuisseTechPartners, the opportunities in Singapore are considerable. There are few providers that can boast modern technology as sophisticated as our PMplus™ system, which includes:
- End-to-end Asset Management/Wealth capabilities from OMS to sophisticated Performance Reporting;
- Full General-ledger built-in;
- Strongest audit capabilities throughout the transaction lifecycle;
- Cloud-native application together with a Singapore registered hosting company;
- Modern technology base making optimal use of leading open-source components;
- Full end-to-end Unicode throughout for multi-lingual reporting;
- Digital asset record-keeping capabilities fully integrated to the core of the system; and,
- Many custodian interfaces pre-built, including those most commonly required for Singapore.
The capabilities of PMplus™ are truly end-to-end, as illustrated in the diagram below:
With rising affluence, together with the need to manage wealth for multiple generations, an ever increasing number of ultra-high net worth (UHNW) families and individuals are looking to professionals to manage and protect their wealth. In fact many of Asia’s family-owned businesses are in their first or second generation, meaning that the majority are considering their first inter-generational transfer of wealth. Having a professional family-office manager with the most up to date technology can assist with the transfer over a period of time and help to avoid the potential conflicts between beneficiaries that can occur.
In Asia, where the majority of family wealth growth has taken place over the last decade or two, locations such as Singapore and Hong Kong continuing to be the focus of popularity. SuisseTechPartners has offices in both locations. To get additional information about our services, please register at our website (www.suissetechpartners.com) for a private discussion or contact us as below.
STP SuisseTechPartners Singapore
96 Robinson Road
#11-04 SIF Building
Singapore (068899)
STP SuisseTechPartners Hong Kong
Skyway Centre, 12/F
23 Queen’s Road West Sheung Wan
Hong Kong SAR
Phone: +852 2873 2700
