Winners of this publication's Greater China awards and other industry figures talk of success, challenges for the future and their strategy.

The WealthBriefingAsia team recently honoured dozens of firms and individuals for its Greater China awards programme, held in Hong Kong. That event salutes the kind of qualities needed in a business that is ultimately about people. Those virtues include discipline, teamwork, attention to detail and openness to new ideas.

Winners and sponsors (Huddleston Jones and Refinitiv) shared their views about the awards and their views on the state of the market in a series of video interviews.

Readers can view a full list of the winning firms and individuals here.

Readers do not need to be reminded how important the Greater China business area is. It is one of the great wealth management powerhouses. Across Asia-Pacific as a whole, the high net worth population stood at 6.2 million with a collective worth of $21.6 trillion, according to Capgemini’s report last year for figures on 2017. That wealth rose by 14.8 per cent in 2017.

Figures from UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers last year tell an even more potent story: some 89 Chinese entrepreneurs became billionaires for the first time in 2017. That is three times more than the 30 who were minted in the US during the same year, or the 34 created in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. To put the figures into a global context, 199 self-made billionaires were created in 2017. China’s market is also young: some 17 per cent of new Chinese billionaires founded businesses less than 10 years ago; in the US, the comparable share is 7 per cent. 

Even if decelerating Chinese economic growth and some market falls in late 2018 take some glitter off the figures, the statistics explain why banks ranging from international giants such as UBS through to regional players such as ICBC and DBS are pushing hard into this market. Big-brand names can offer a full-service offering; regional lenders have the local networks and cultural closeness to clients and there is plenty of room for international and local boutique offerings. While many clients still like a transactional model, a desire for wealth creators for estate planning/transfer solutions will bring new offerings and processes. There is also plenty for local practitioners to learn from how business is done in Europe and North America – and vice versa. Greater China is a young market for family offices, for example, and advisors and clients are keen to learn from markets such as the US about structuring these entities. 

International banks know that great wealth doesn’t mean making money out of it is easy, particularly when costs of doing business can be challenging. The fact that some European firms have sold Asian private banks to local players suggests that the path is not a smooth one, and requires bank executives to be patient and realistic.

Those involved in market positioning also need to heed the political and regulatory world, however irksome that can be. At the start of 2019, for example, China imposed tougher rules on citizens’ offshore financial holdings. Firms must reflect on how to keep on the right side of these rules and remain relevant.

Greater China, like much of Asia, appears in key respects to be in front of other regions in embracing the digital revolution, whether it be machine learning, use of chat bots, AI-driven advice, mobile devices and the use of Big Data. In all this ferment, organisations will need to balance the need for investment against keeping costs tight. Those who get strategy right will win in the future, and no doubt, win the kind of awards that WealthBriefingAsia promotes.