Emerging market investors could be HK wealth managers’ next growth engine: BCG

Wealth transfer boosts the wealth management sector but talent gap limits growth.

Hong Kong’s wealth managers have the potential to unlock a new growth engine by becoming a bridge to emerging market investors seeking to diversify their portfolios and enter the mainland Chinese market, according to an analyst.

“Last year, we actually had a lot of discussions from some of the distributors, asset managers, [and] wealth managers in the Middle East and also in Central Asia to explore establishing some presence in Hong Kong,” David Chan, managing director and a partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

These firms are looking to capture wealth flows connecting mainland China and Hong Kong to the Middle East and Central Asia, Chan said in his keynote address during the Hong Kong leg of the Asian Banking & Finance and Insurance Asia (ABF IA) Summit 2026 held on 5 November.

Chan said that mainland China will remain a major driver of growth for Hong Kong’s wealth and asset managers, with mainland investors seeking to take advantage of the city’s depth of liquidity and the breadth of its advisory and financial planning services.

Mainland Chinese investors looking to expand globally are looking for succession planning advisory and asset allocation tax planning services, he told the attendees at the

Chan also noted the intergenerational wealth transfer as a major trend that will drive the growth of the Hong Kong wealth market. Across Asia, business founders are at the age where they think of succession, he said.

Wealthy founders’ succession planning expectations do not just revolve around transferring wealth, but also the health of their business and their families, Chan said.

“It is more around the holistic kind of a succession planning beyond just the wealth, but also the business continuity, the health of their entire family, the longevity continuity, and also even for the family legacy, family value,” Chan said.

For wealth managers, this meant having to collaborate with different partners in order to combine their offerings to meet these succession planning needs, he said.

Other opportunities for wealth management growth revolve around tokenisation and talent shortage, Chan said.

“We have a lot of demand. We have a lot of capital coming in, but then we have a huge talent shortage,” Chan said.

Chan sees artificial intelligence (AI) playing a role to close that shortage.

“We have been working with different banks to build up the end-to-end tech stack [using] AI, from discovery, to where they engage with the customers, to recommending the right kind of the product or the solutions for them, and eventually servicing them,” Chan said.