Singapore’s AUM grew by $470b mostly due to institutional investors: MAS

The growth makes up around 20% of the increase in total AUM from 2017 to 2021.

The assets under management (AUM) of foreign non-retail individual clients went up by $470b from 2017 to 2021, which is largely attributable to institutional investors, said Minister of State for Trade and Industry Alvin Tan.

In a statement to the Parliament, Tan, who is the central bank’s board member, said this amount makes up about 20% of increase in total AUM by Singapore’s asset management industry from 2017 to 2021. This was revealed in the Monetary Authority of Singapore study.

He also mentioned that there has been a much broader pickup of funds flowing into the market’s  wealth management industry, “not peculiar to these high-end individual clients.” 

In the yearly survey, there is no breakdown for family offices but single-family offices that apply for and are granted tax incentives by MAS managed about $90b of assets as of 2021. 

“This is less than 2% of the S5.4t assets managed in Singapore as of 2021,” Tan said.

The top-sourced foreign region for the increase in Singapore’s AUM for high-end individual investors from 2017 to 2021 was APAC.

“It accounted for slightly over half of AUM sourced from high-end individual investors. Asia-Pacific was followed by Europe and the Americas,” said Tan.