Attracting capital is one thing. Anchoring the managers, investment decisions and capabilities around it is another.
For financial centres, headline asset growth is only part of the picture.
Capital can be raised in one market, structured in another, managed somewhere else and supported by teams spread across several jurisdictions. The more significant question is therefore not simply how much capital a financial centre attracts, but how much of the investment-management activity surrounding that capital remains connected to the market.
Recent policy developments in both Singapore and Hong Kong suggest that this is increasingly where the focus lies.
Neither market is pursuing exactly the same model. Their strengths, geographic relationships and financial ecosystems are different. But both are creating more reasons for capital to be not only invested locally, but also managed, governed and supported by deeper pools of specialist capability.
Hong Kong: giving capital more reasons to stay
Hong Kong has been steadily expanding the structures available to asset managers and investors.
Its New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES) requires eligible applicants to invest at least HK$30 million in permissible assets. By the end of February 2026, InvestHK had received 3,166 applications, representing around HK$95 billion of anticipated investment.
At the same time, Hong Kong’s domestic fund-domiciliation ecosystem continues to expand. By June 2026, the market had registered 1,729 Limited Partnership Funds and 752 Open-ended Fund Companies.
These structures matter because attracting investment is only one part of developing an asset-management centre. Managers also need vehicles through which capital can be established, governed and deployed.
Hong Kong is also proposing further enhancements to its preferential tax regimes for privately offered funds, family-owned investment holding vehicles and carried interest. The 2026 amendment bill is intended to broaden qualifying investments and improve the existing regimes, with the stated aim of attracting more funds and family offices to establish and operate in Hong Kong and encouraging more global capital to be managed there.
The direction is clear: attract capital, provide structures for it and create more reasons for investment-management activity to remain close to the market.
Building infrastructure around the capital
Hong Kong’s strategy also extends beyond fund structures and taxation.
The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Integrated Fund Platform is being developed as infrastructure for the fund-distribution ecosystem. Its services include a fund repository and order-routing capabilities connecting distributors, fund houses and transfer agents, with additional platform and nominee services planned.
Hong Kong also maintains a statutory mechanism allowing overseas corporate funds to re-domicile to Hong Kong using the OFC structure, while preserving their corporate continuity.
Combined with its public capital markets, cross-border wealth-management role and continuing development of digital-asset infrastructure, this means Hong Kong’s proposition is increasingly about the ecosystem surrounding capital, rather than capital attraction alone.
In other words, the objective is not simply to bring money into Hong Kong. It is to create an environment in which that money can be structured, invested, distributed, serviced and governed within the same financial ecosystem.
Singapore: anchoring the managers behind the capital
Singapore’s recent measures approach the same broad objective from a somewhat different direction.
On 19 August 2026, the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced a package designed to strengthen Singapore’s position as an asset-management hub.
The measures comprise three elements.
First, MAS and the Ministry of Finance intend to introduce a targeted tax exemption for qualifying profit-related returns arising from fund-management services, with implementation expected from Year of Assessment 2027 and further details to follow.
Second, MAS will introduce a Hedge Fund Investment Programme, under which it will invest with hedge-fund managers growing their Singapore presence.
Third, Singapore will introduce an Investment Management Track under the ONE Pass framework, aimed at global leaders and senior investment professionals in asset management. The Government has since confirmed that the track is intended to complement Singapore’s wider talent-development ecosystem and support the growth of professional opportunities in financial services.
Taken together, these measures go beyond attracting investment funds.
They target the people and investment activity behind those funds.
Building depth around the managers
That distinction becomes important when looking at the scale of Singapore’s existing asset-management industry.
MAS says the sector has grown by an average of around 7.5% annually over the past five years to almost S$7 trillion, accounting for roughly 15% of financial-sector output and supporting close to 25,000 jobs.
The Hedge Fund Investment Programme is particularly noteworthy because the intended effect is not confined to hedge-fund managers themselves.
MAS has described the measures as helping to anchor high-value asset-management activities, deepen industry capabilities and attract top investment talent. The broader ecosystem includes investment professionals, prime brokerages and specialist service providers. This reveals a wider economic logic.
A fund manager choosing Singapore as a substantive investment base can generate demand well beyond portfolio management alone. Around that manager sit capital-raising professionals, compliance teams, fund lawyers, tax advisers, technology providers, administrators, brokers and other specialist services.
The goal is therefore not simply more funds. It is greater depth around the funds.
Different strengths, similar direction
Hong Kong and Singapore should not be viewed only through the lens of direct competition.
Their roles within Asia are complementary in important ways.
Hong Kong combines deep Mainland connectivity with strong public capital markets, cross-border wealth activity and an increasingly diverse domestic fund ecosystem.
Singapore has developed as a regional headquarters and asset-management centre with strong connectivity across Southeast Asia and India, significant private-markets activity and a framework designed to attract global business and investment talent.
That gives each market different reasons to remain relevant to global managers.
What they increasingly share is a desire to anchor more of the decision-making, specialist capability and economic activity surrounding capital within Asia.
For the region as a whole, this can have effects beyond Singapore and Hong Kong themselves.
Capital managed from either hub may ultimately be deployed across Southeast Asia, India, Greater China and other Asian markets. The accompanying demand for legal, tax, fund services, technology, operations and professional expertise can similarly extend across borders.
Where could the opportunities emerge?
The employment implications therefore extend beyond the obvious investment roles.
As asset-management ecosystems deepen, opportunity may emerge across several layers:
- Investment — portfolio management, research and investment leadership.
- Capital and product — fund structuring, product development, capital raising and institutional distribution.
- Governance — compliance, legal, risk and fiduciary oversight.
- Supporting ecosystem — prime brokerage, fund services, investor services, tax, technology and other specialist professional services.
This does not mean every policy initiative immediately translates into hiring. Nor does it mean all firms will build the same operating model. But the direction is worth watching.
Where capital becomes more deeply anchored, organisations need people capable of making, governing and supporting the decisions attached to that capital.
Looking ahead
The next phase of Asia’s asset-management growth may therefore be less about which city attracts the largest amount of capital and more about where that capital is actually managed, governed and put to work.
Singapore and Hong Kong are approaching that question through different strengths and policy tools, but both are deepening the ecosystems surrounding investment activity.
For hiring managers, this means workforce planning may increasingly need to consider roles linked to investment judgement, product development, distribution, governance and specialist support.
For professionals, proximity to the investment decision-making process — whether through investment, client, regulatory or specialist expertise — may become increasingly valuable.
The most important outcome may not be that capital simply arrives in Asia.
It is that more of the capability surrounding that capital stays here too.
References:
- Monetary Authority of Singapore – Aug 2026 measures to strengthen Singapore’s asset-management hub
- Ministry of Manpower, Singapore – ONE Pass Investment Management Track
- Hong Kong Government – New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme
- Hong Kong Companies Registry – LPF & OFC Statistics, Jun 2026
- HKEX – Integrated Fund Platform
- Securities and Futures Commission, Hong Kong – OFC Regime and fund re-domiciliation