being moved overseas and overhaul its tax rules on offshore trusts, the reverberations have not only been felt among the nation's wealthy. The new regulations are also making waves 4,500 kilometers from Beijing in Singapore, Southeast Asia's financial hub.

Singaporean banks have long been suitors for Chinese wealth and the city-state had become a popular location for rich Chinese to set up single family offices, or SFOs, asset management organizations that steward fortunes of high-net-worth individuals and their kin.

But Beijing's reforms, coming on the heels of Singapore tightening its rules on vetting sources of wealth following a $3 billion Singapore dollar ($2.34 billion) money-laundering scandal, have prompted lawyers, consultants and even parliamentarians to question the extent to which the Southeast Asian country will be able to continue to attract Chinese families' assets.

Adding to the concerns is data suggesting that Hong Kong had, from 2023-2025, witnessed the creation of more SFOs offices than Singapore.

Singapore's crackdown followed the 2024 convictions for money-laundering by 10 criminals from China and the fining of six major banks It sowed the seeds of uncertainty in some Chinese quarters, with industry players citing lengthy wait times for bank account opening applications to be processed in the wake of stricter vetting.

In May of this year, China moved to stem illicit stock trading on overseas brokerage platforms, erecting a barrier for its citizens to invest in foreign equities. Its overhaul in July of tax rules on offshore trusts stoked unease about a crucial wealth-planning tool for the country's high-net-worth individuals who want money managed overseas, and cast uncertainty over the strategy of building trusts in non-Chinese jurisdictions like Singapore.

Robin Harris, Asia-Pacific head at private wealth service provider Ocorian, told Nikkei Asia there has been a slowdown in inquiries from wealthy Chinese clients looking to establish trusts and family offices in Singapore, with some clients pausing implementation while they assess implications of the tax changes.

"There is certainly a degree of caution in the market at present," the Hong Kong-based Harris said. "We have a number of cases in our sales pipeline which are now on hold or have been cancelled."

Loh Kia Meng, senior partner at Singaporean law firm Dentons Rodyk, said, "Trustees, private banks, family offices and advisers across the region should expect significantly greater demand for reviews, restructuring advice and compliance support [in the wake of Beijing's moves]." He added that following China's reforms, his firm received inquiries from high-net-worth families wanting to know the impact, with some reviewing whether their existing wealth structures remain appropriate.

Gan Kim Yong, Singapore's deputy prime minister and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, speaks at the Global-Asia Family Office Summit in Singapore, on Oct. 5. He has stressed that the city-state remains an attractive investment destination. (Monetary Authority of Singapore) The head of a family office in Singapore managing hundreds of millions of dollars in assets tied to a Chinese family told Nikkei Asia that wealthy individuals who generate fortunes in China and take them offshore "should be worried."

"It's inevitable that Chinese authorities are chasing and getting more strict," he said. "It affects any people who make fortunes in China or from China and are trying to put the money outside -- [they] will be affected, regardless of whether they want to set up a trust, or a family office." Questions over China's stricter stance have spilled over into Singapore's parliament, where lawmakers in September asked "how Singapore will preserve its legitimate competitiveness in light of these rules." "Clients are assessing the implications of China's new measures," said Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong in a reply, highlighting that banks have not observed significant impact. "Wealth owners choose Singapore for many key reasons, including our high standards of regulation, strong rule of law, and comprehensive ecosystem of wealth managers and professional service providers."

Last month, one lender, United Overseas Bank, announced the completion of its latest finance program for heirs-apparent of wealthy families, where a select group was taken on a learning expedition in "the heart of China's innovation economy" -- Shanghai and Hangzhou.

"The impact to us probably is manageable," Jacquelyn Tan, UOB's head of Group Personal Financial Services, said of China's rules on offshore trusts when asked about them at a news briefing on the bank's study of rising affluent Southeast Asian clients in September. "Singapore is always a wealth hub, right, and a financial center -- flows will always continue to happen." Some wealthy Chinese are changing tack. A Singapore-based consultant who advised two wealthy Hong Kong passport holders said his clients were looking to establish multi-million-dollar trusts in the Southeast Asian hub prior to Beijing's tightening.

After China announced its stricter tax stance, he said alternatives aimed at "self-preservation" are being explored, including potentially starting joint ventures in Singapore with local partners and shifting goods to the city-state to be sold under a Singaporean firm -- the transactions logged in the hub then being out of China's reach, in theory.

"They are trying to escape the cash grab (by China)," the consultant said of his clients. "A lot of them are finding ways to flow their assets out." The Hong Kong Fiduciary Association, an industry group, told Nikkei Asia that for Singapore, while stricter scrutiny has not "been a major deterrent" to the city-state's broader appeal as a wealth management center, high-net-worth clients do have to increasingly consider if they can meet required standards of transparency under China's new tax regime.

Jacquelyn Tan, second from left, United Overseas Bank's head of Group Personal Financial Services, speaks at a news briefing on the bank's study of rising affluent Southeast Asian clients.

"For offshore trust structures, this may create an additional burden for settlors, particularly in relation to the taxation of unrealized gains and the valuation of trust assets," Mong Chung Chee, the association's president for Asia-Pacific, told Nikkei Asia. "At the current stage, we would expect this to result in fewer China-resident clients using offshore trust structures." It is unclear how much of an impact the Chinese action has had on Singapore's SFO ecosystem. The city-state's authorities have also become increasingly vague about how many of the entities have been established in the country.

The official total rose from 400 in 2020 to 700 in 2021, 1,100 in 2022 and 1,400 in 2023, before surpassing 2,000 in 2024. Rich families from Chinese markets helped drive this growth. "More than 2,000" was also the figure for the end of 2025, based on official figures disclosed in August.

"In previous years we saw a strong ramp up in the number of family offices," Leong Sing Chiong, deputy managing director of the Markets and Development Group at Singapore's central bank, told reporters in July. "In terms of the numbers, right, it has moderated but we continue to see steady growth." According to professional services firm Deloitte, Hong Kong was home to 3,384 SFOs at the end of 2025 -- an increase of 681 over two years.

"During interviews, respondents frequently compared Hong Kong favorably to Singapore, with families indicating a preference for SFO establishment in the former and financial institutions reporting client migration from the latter," said Deloitte's China Hong Kong Consulting Partner Rita Chan.

Horace Yip, head of Citi Private Bank's Hong Kong business, declared after hosting an investor gathering for representatives from 150 family offices last month that the city "continues to strengthen its position" as a base for family offices. "Its status as home to Asia's largest billionaire population underscores the city's enduring attractiveness as a center for wealth creation and investment." However, rules governing SFOs in the two jurisdictions are different, which makes direct comparisons difficult.

For example, SFOs in Singapore require SG$20 million in assets under management to qualify for tax incentives while those in Hong Kong require $240 million Hong Kong (SG$39 million), according to Singaporean advisory firm NovaLink. Singaporean SFOs also have to hold direct investments in Singaporean equities and spend on local businesses. Consultants say Singapore's anti-money laundering rules are also stricter. There is even less clarity over the size of the assets being managed in each jurisdiction.

According to a report last month by consultancy LEK, Hong Kong is estimated to have $180 billion in transferable wealth from 2025 to 2040. Singapore's comparable figure stands at $67 billion.

Participants in United Overseas Bank's latest finance program for heirs-apparent of wealthy families, held partly in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou, pose for a photo. (UOB) "A structural reordering of who controls family wealth, where assets reside and which institutions will be chosen to manage the intergenerational transition is taking place right now," the report said. "Global private banks and wealth and asset managers have been quick to recognize this tectonic shift and are proactively positioning themselves to benefit."

Singapore and Hong Kong have both pushed policies to stretch their appeal as administrative centers for private wealth. For the China-ruled hub, Chief Executive John Lee in September unveiled a five-year plan to boost overall near-term growth and guide long-term development for the city.

In asset management, plans are afoot to extend tax concessions to precious metals, private credit and digital assets, with Hong Kong aiming to help at least another 220 family offices establish operations or expand by 2028, a report last month by DBS Group Holdings, Singapore's largest bank, highlighted.

"The influx of overseas companies is bringing both talent and capital," the report said, with Hong Kong becoming "the world's largest cross-border wealth booking center, with cross-border wealth reaching US$2.9 trillion." A view of a Citibank event last month in Hong Kong for representatives of 150 single family offices. The bank described it as its "largest format to date," for the sector. (Citibank) Singapore has only released figures on the entire asset management industry, covering corporates and private wealth, which had assets under management of SG$6.7 trillion in 2025, government data showed. The city-state has also not publicly stated targets for growth in family office numbers.

In August, the Southeast Asian hub announced a suite of measures to enhance its status as an asset management center, including offering elite visas to lure senior investment professionals from overseas.

Singapore's financial regulator recognized that lengthy bank account opening times had become a deterrent to some prospective clients. It signaled earlier this year that it would work with private banks to shorten account opening times to within a month from sometimes six weeks or longer. On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Gan announced that the opening of "nearly half of all new accounts" by major private banks in the past three months was completed within a month.

"Singapore remains a leading financial hub in Asia among our Chinese clients," Josephine Poh, market head of private wealth and family offices for South Asia and Australasia at compliance services provider TMF Singapore, told Nikkei Asia. "Chinese wealthy families and family offices are becoming more sophisticated in how they structure and manage their wealth in the jurisdiction."