As global financial market volatility propels investors to seek diversification, Hong Kong’s unique strengths in asset and wealth management are boosting the city’s quest to become the world’s leading cross-border wealth management center.

HSBC Private Bank surveyed some 3,000 entrepreneurs from 15 markets in the Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report 2025.

The survey revealed that 31 percent of interviewed Hong Kong and Chinese mainland entrepreneurs have positive confidence in their personal wealth. Thirty-nine percent of the surveyed Hong Kong entrepreneurs cited financial market volatility as the top concern for making investment decision. For mainland entrepreneurs, the ratio is 33 percent.

Whether it is business, assets or residences, entrepreneurs embrace diversification. In this year’s survey, more than half (59 percent) of sampled entrepreneurs said they are considering moving wealth to a new location, and nine percent said they are considering moving wealth to Hong Kong.

Mainland entrepreneurs are looking to Hong Kong. Twenty-two percent of interviewed mainland entrepreneurs said that Hong Kong is their top choice for asset allocation as they underscored the Asia financial hub’s role in wealth management and raising capital.

“Hong Kong is actively reinforcing its position as the world’s leading cross-boundary wealth management center,” said Josephine Kwan, asset and wealth management industry leader at PwC Hong Kong.

Kwan added Hong Kong can explore more ways to reinforce its asset and wealth management hub position. “With the Hong Kong Investment Corporation’s ongoing support for local private equity and hedge funds, and further innovations under Project Ensemble, including tokenized assets, Hong Kong will become a dynamic, innovative and forward-looking international financial center.”

“The government should seize the opportunity to further optimize tax incentives for family offices and expand the scope of qualifying investments to include asset classes such as arts, fine wine and collectibles,” EY Hong Kong Financial Services Tax Partner Lam Ming said.

To attract family offices, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has implemented profits tax exemption for family-owned investment holding vehicles managed by single family offices in the SAR. The government also refined the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (new CIES), such as reducing the threshold of residential property transaction price, raising the aggregate cap for the total investment amount in real estate, and relaxing the net asset assessment and calculation requirements regarding investments through wholly-owned private companies.

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The administration plans to introduce a bill into the Legislative Council in the first half of 2026 to further enhance the preferential tax regimes for funds, single family-offices and carried interest, including enhancing the tax concession arrangement for the distribution of carried interest by private equity funds, for attracting more PE funds to set up shop in the city. The SAR will also expand qualifying investments for tax concessions to include private credit and other asset classes.

Roy Phan, Hong Kong financial services tax leader and investment tax partner at Deloitte China, highlighted: “The government could explore establishing a 'CIES Connect' and ‘Family Office Connect’ investment channel in consultation with mainland authorities, providing high-net-worth individuals and single family offices with a dedicated cross-border investment channel that mirrors the closed-loop fund flow arrangement under the current cross-boundary wealth management connect scheme, for expanding cross-border investment opportunities further.”

In September, the government achieved the goal of facilitating at least 200 family offices establishing or expanding operations in the SAR by the end of this year. Looking ahead, the administration is vying to lure another 220 family offices to Hong Kong from 2026 to 2028.

The total assets under management in Hong Kong grew by 13 percent year on year, reaching HK$35 trillion ($4.48 trillion) in 2024, according to Securities and Futures Commission.  The city is tipped to overtake Switzerland as the world’s largest cross-border wealth management hub by 2028.