Asia’s HNW and UHNW Investors and the Growing Importance of ESG, Impact & Sustainability
Jersey Finance sponsored a Hubbis mini-survey of the upper echelons of the Asian wealth market in terms of high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-HNW (UHNW) clients and their relationship to ESG and investing for impact and sustainability.
Hubbis surveyed 112 wealth management leaders and decision-makers in Asia.
Respondents expressed their views on key trends and expectations from ESG-driven investment in a remarkably comprehensive, detailed and passionate way. Hubbis points out that:
- Tailoring the global ESG investment (re)volution specifically to the Asia wealth market, evident from what is an admittedly low base, ESG-driven investing among the HNW and UHNW private client community in Asia is clearly on the rise.
- Respondents indicated that the private banks in particular and, to some extent, the independent wealth management community are the key proponents at this stage, perhaps more so than the private clients themselves.
- The younger generations appear to be the most inclined, but they are as yet less in control of Asia’s vast private coffers.
- Private clients in Asia, as a generalisation, appear increasingly receptive to allocating a small but rising portion of their portfolios to investments with the ESG stamp of approval.
The following sentence sums up key findings and observations from the report: ESG-driven investing in Asia is engaging more and more advocates and supporters, but for private client investors to take the next step, there must be greater global standardisation, more regulatory support, and greater understanding among those private investors, and more evidence that this will genuinely help their portfolios outperform as well as mitigate risks.
