Hong Kong has just done something it has not done before — overtaken Switzerland as the world’s largest center for cross-border wealth. The milestone is worth remarking, but it matters more for the opportunity it presents than for bragging rights.
For the first time, the city is the world’s largest hub for cross-border wealth bookings — a milestone officials may celebrate, but one that should prompt deeper reflection on the role Hong Kong seeks to play in the decade ahead. Rather than simply applying rules written elsewhere, it now has the chance to help shape how global wealth flows through Asia and beyond.
Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) latest Global Wealth Report estimates offshore assets booked in Hong Kong at roughly $2.95 trillion in 2025, narrowly ahead of Switzerland’s $2.94 trillion. The consultants say the shift is “unlikely to be reversed” as Asian hubs grow faster than their European rivals. That may well be true in statistical terms, but league tables have a habit of flattering to deceive. What matters is not that Hong Kong is the overall leader, but what that stands for.
At the moment, the reasons aren’t complicated. Money from the Chinese mainland has been flowing, initial public offerings have revived this year, and Hong Kong’s offshore balance sheet has blossomed. Bloomberg Intelligence had more or less called it, estimating cross-border assets at about $2.9 trillion as wealthy mainland investors looked for places to spread their bets. KPMG and PwC, meanwhile, report that Hong Kong reclaimed the top global spot for IPO fundraising in 2025, raising between HK$270 billion ($34.47 billion) and HK$285 billion, with an exceptionally strong pipeline into 2026.
According to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, around two-thirds of the mainland’s inbound and outbound direct investment flows through the city. It also hosts the world’s largest offshore renminbi market, with a liquidity pool of roughly 1 trillion yuan ($147.63 billion) and handling over 70 percent of global offshore renminbi payments.
Being China’s offshore financial center is a position built carefully over decades, but it cannot be the whole plan. If Hong Kong measures success solely by volume, it risks overreliance on a single hinterland — and exposure to policy shifts in Beijing or Washington. A single foundation, however strong, is not a complete strategy.
Switzerland learned that lesson the hard way. It built its wealth-management business on secrecy. That model worked for years — until it didn’t. As pressure mounted, the country had little choice but to move toward tax transparency and automatic information exchange.
Over the past decade, Swiss private banks have invested heavily in compliance, repositioning themselves as custodians of clean, well-diversified wealth. They still manage almost as much cross-border wealth as Hong Kong and are projected to continue growing, though at a slower pace of around 6 percent a year, compared with close to 9 percent for the Asian centers. In other words, Switzerland lost one model and painstakingly wrote itself a new rulebook.
Hong Kong’s advantage lies in its “one country, two systems” framework and its strategic location, positioned between a mainland market opening in deliberate stages and a global order increasingly drifting into rival regulatory blocs. That position gives the city scope to shape the standards and operating practices that determine how capital moves across borders.
The Connect programs offer a glimpse of how this works in practice. Stock Connect and Bond Connect came first, followed by Wealth Management Connect and, more recently, Swap Connect. Each arrangement sets out detailed understandings — on how risk is allocated, which legal framework applies, and how oversight is handled. Each is the product of patient negotiation across different systems. In this role, Hong Kong becomes more than a booking center. It becomes a place where jurisdictions that do not entirely trust one another still find ways to do business.
Hong Kong’s advantage lies in its “one country, two systems” framework and its strategic location, positioned between a mainland market opening in deliberate stages and a global order increasingly drifting into rival regulatory blocs. That position gives the city scope to shape the standards and operating practices that determine how capital moves across borders
But that role is not guaranteed. BCG data show that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Singapore, and Switzerland together accounted for more than half of new cross-border wealth in 2024, with Singapore growing by nearly 12 percent. Singapore’s pitch to global families — political stability, predictable regulation and distance from geopolitics — clearly resonates with a wide range of Asian clients. At the same time, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as a fast growing hub for capital from the Middle East, Russia and, increasingly, parts of Asia.
Hong Kong’s stronger position comes amid growing uncertainty across global markets. Sanctions have become a preferred bargaining tool and can shift with little notice, even as regulators scrutinize cross-border activity and firms face mounting pressure to track political risk alongside market risk. In turn, investors have grown more cautious about where they place their capital and which jurisdictions they trust to safeguard it. In this environment, size alone is no guarantee of lasting strength.
The more durable edge is functional. Hong Kong serves as the main hub for offshore RMB liquidity, clearing and settlement, and product development. As cross-border initiatives roll out — covering bond access, derivatives clearing, or wealth management channels — the structuring and day-to-day plumbing tend to happen here. It’s the granular work behind these channels, from documentation standards to supervisory coordination, that determines whether international institutions feel confident enough to operate at scale.
That kind of operational credibility counts for a lot as the mainland opens its financial system in measured steps. Hong Kong remains the main place where mainland reforms meet global capital, under a common-law system that has been in place for decades. It’s where practical fixes are tested before being rolled out more widely, and the working habits that develop here tend to shape what people across the region come to expect.
Holding onto that lead, though, means looking beyond familiar sources of capital. Wealth is being created at pace across Asia and the Middle East, and attracting that capital comes down to the basics — tax rules investors can plan around, courts that handle disputes properly, and regulators who do not keep moving the goalposts. These are the factors investors weigh against each other, and they pay closest attention when markets are under pressure.
So slipping past Switzerland matters, particularly after a stretch when many had written Hong Kong off. The harder question is what the city does with the lead. Reputations in finance are built slowly and lost quickly, and the next downturn — whenever it comes — will tell us more about Hong Kong’s standing than any league table.
The work from here is unglamorous — keeping the dispute solutions predictable, the rulebook steady, and the connectivity arrangements with the mainland moving forward. Broaden the investor base beyond familiar sources, and the lead becomes harder to dislodge. Get those things right, and the city won’t just hold the top spot. It will have earned it.
The author is an international partner and member of the Global Advisory Board, MilleniumAssociates AG.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
