Singapore is being touted as the “new Switzerland” of banking and wealth management, the beneficiary of geography and a new global trend to crack down on bank secrecy. Now the nation-state appears to be enhancing its position by becoming an attractive haven for the ultimate wealth: gold. Singapore’s transformation signals a global shift, as the center of wealth and power migrates from West to East, out of paper and into physical.
As CNBC reported in June, Singapore is the fastest-growing wealth center in the world, with $550 billion in assets under management ($450 billion of which are off-shore owned), up from $50 billion in 2000, and is projected to become the world’s largest center of off-shore wealth by 2020, according to London-based research firm Wealth Insight.
Switzerland’s current $2.1 trillion in assets under management, representing 34% of total global wealth, far transcends Singapore-sited wealth today.