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http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,187053,00.html?
S'pore's wealth management: $1 trillion and growing
December 17, 2008
SINGAPORE is being depicted as a haven for the super-rich by a recent feature of news agency Reuters.
'The sun-drenched Asian city-state, with the highest density of millionaires in the world, is seeing wealth management prosper as the US and Europe grapple with the worst slump in a generation,' said the report picked by Forbes, China Daily and a local weblog.
The feature compared Singapore's strict bank secrecy rules to those of Switzerland which are under assault, following the charging of UBS's wealth management chief for helping Americans hide money.
Assets under the management of Singapore financial institutions soared by a third last year to more than US$800 billion (about $1.17 trillion).
The amount is small compared to Switzerland. Singapore had US$500 billion in offshore assets under management last year, according to the Boston Consulting Group, compared to four times as much in Switzerland.
Banks such as Credit Suisse and Macquarie Group are hiring wealth management staff in Singapore, despite a local recession. Bank of China is one of the latest to plan a wealth management arm here.
Singapore has a hard line on bank secrecy. It has not agreed to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) standards of transparency and exchange of information.
Singapore, which is trying to grow financial services to wean dependence on manufacturing, is on the International Monetary Fund's list of tax havens and targeted by a proposed new US anti-tax-abuse law.
Another country that had similarly shunned the OECD, Liechtenstein, recently agreed to a landmark deal with the US, paving the way for the exchange of bank account details with Washington in cases of tax evasion. The agreement may pressure Switzerland into similar concessions.
Such scrutiny in the West could lead to more European money flowing here. But European cash comes with the risk that Singapore too could be targeted in the crackdown on tax havens.
The US told Singapore and its banks last year to sever financial links with Myanmar's military junta.
Singapore's central bank said confidentiality laws were no shield for criminal activities and that banks could disclose customer information to assist such investigations.
S'pore's wealth management: $1 trillion and growing
December 17, 2008
SINGAPORE is being depicted as a haven for the super-rich by a recent feature of news agency Reuters.
'The sun-drenched Asian city-state, with the highest density of millionaires in the world, is seeing wealth management prosper as the US and Europe grapple with the worst slump in a generation,' said the report picked by Forbes, China Daily and a local weblog.
The feature compared Singapore's strict bank secrecy rules to those of Switzerland which are under assault, following the charging of UBS's wealth management chief for helping Americans hide money.
Assets under the management of Singapore financial institutions soared by a third last year to more than US$800 billion (about $1.17 trillion).
The amount is small compared to Switzerland. Singapore had US$500 billion in offshore assets under management last year, according to the Boston Consulting Group, compared to four times as much in Switzerland.
Banks such as Credit Suisse and Macquarie Group are hiring wealth management staff in Singapore, despite a local recession. Bank of China is one of the latest to plan a wealth management arm here.
Singapore has a hard line on bank secrecy. It has not agreed to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) standards of transparency and exchange of information.
Singapore, which is trying to grow financial services to wean dependence on manufacturing, is on the International Monetary Fund's list of tax havens and targeted by a proposed new US anti-tax-abuse law.
Another country that had similarly shunned the OECD, Liechtenstein, recently agreed to a landmark deal with the US, paving the way for the exchange of bank account details with Washington in cases of tax evasion. The agreement may pressure Switzerland into similar concessions.
Such scrutiny in the West could lead to more European money flowing here. But European cash comes with the risk that Singapore too could be targeted in the crackdown on tax havens.
The US told Singapore and its banks last year to sever financial links with Myanmar's military junta.
Singapore's central bank said confidentiality laws were no shield for criminal activities and that banks could disclose customer information to assist such investigations.
