New Bay Area initiatives extend opportunities for wealth management to retail customers

The vision of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is starting to take shape, and as it comes into focus, the opportunities it offers are becoming clearer.

The Bay Area initiative is designed to leverage the complementary strengths of Hong Kong, Macao and nine mainland cities to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. At its heart, it is about connectivity: easing the flows of finance, skills and technology between the different centers of excellence to maximize the potential synergies.

The recent announcement of 16 specific areas of cooperation puts flesh on the bones of this vision. Most are technical and designed to make cross-boundary collaboration easier — measures such as mutual recognition of professional qualifications, for example — but there are also significant new opportunities for more-effective wealth management.

The Hong Kong government is going to explore ways of opening a “two-way wealth management connect scheme” that will give participants simultaneous exposure to opportunities on both sides of the boundary.

The Bay Area is one of the richest parts of China, with a GDP per capita of $23,000, but the range of wealth management options available to investors is limited by the patchwork of different regulatory requirements needed to market products in Hong Kong and Macao, and on the mainland.

Under a proposed new unified regulatory regime, banks, insurers and asset management firms will be able to sell a broader range of products to a broader range of customers, helping them to diversify their portfolios and gain greater exposure to more markets.

This is a significant new step in the liberalization of the mainland’s financial markets. Previous measures, such as setting up the “Connect” programs linking Hong Kong with Shanghai and Shenzhen, have principally targeted institutional investors; the new dispensation will allow individuals to choose a much broader range of products.

The mainland’s economic growth may be moderating, but it is still the world’s fastest developing major economy. And while it is already possible to gain exposure to that growth, by buying into mainland companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for example, opportunities to buy into broad, risk-weighted and professionally managed wealth management products with a balanced mainland exposure have been limited.

The measure is designed to make long-term financial planning easier for Hong Kong residents who decide to take advantage of employment opportunities in the Bay Area, but as it stands, the proposed relaxation of controls on wealth management products represents an opportunity for all Bay Area residents.

The key to both maximizing the opportunities and managing the risks of wealth is creating a diversified portfolio, and any regulatory changes that make this cheaper and easier are to be welcomed.

And there are other measures in the 16-point proposal that, although they are not specifically designed to create new opportunities to manage wealth more efficiently, will nonetheless make it easier.

HSBC expects the economy of the Bay Area to grow from $1.6 trillion in 2018 to $2.8 trillion in 2025, or over 8 percent per year, and as the new connectivity between the cities facilitates the flow of assets across the region, cities in the lesser-developed west of the Bay Area — like Zhaoqing, Zhuhai and Foshan — are likely to grow the fastest.

Other measures contained in the 16-point plan will make it easier to move assets around the Bay Area. Hong Kong residents will be able to open mainland accounts remotely, although some caps on balance and remittance levels will remain. This will help address something that is objectively a minor inconvenience but in practice a major irritant for Hong Kong people visiting other Bay Area cities: the difficulty of transferring funds into the mobile payment apps, which have all but replaced cash for purchases in restaurants and shops in places like Shenzhen.

The Bay Area is still a work in progress, but has the technical foundations of what looks to become one of the powerhouses of the connected global economy. HSBC forecasts that by 2030, the Bay Area will be as significant as any of the world’s current leading cluster economies, including Tokyo, San Francisco and New York.

The recent publication of the 16-point plan shows the Bay Area taking shape: a region with vastly improved connections that will improve the mobility of people and funds, but will also offer benefits for those who decide to stay put, particularly when it comes to wealth management.

The author is regional head of retail banking and wealth management, Asia Pacific, HSBC.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.