Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong wealth boom driven by Chinese flows

Published Tue, Sep 22, 2026 · 09:45 AM

[SINGAPORE] Deutsche Bank said Chinese inflows to Hong Kong are helping the Asian wealth hub top its private bank’s growth for emerging markets in 2026, underscoring the strength of the city that recently overtook Switzerland as the world’s largest offshore centre.

“It’s been probably the best performing region,” Marco Pagliara, head of emerging markets at Deutsche Bank Private Bank said.

“You’ve seen a fair amount of action, especially around trophy real estate in Hong Kong. Typically, there is a Chinese flavour to that,” the Singapore-based executive said in an interview on Monday (Sep 21).

The comments highlight Hong Kong’s rising significance as an offshore hub for Chinese fund flows despite concerns that Beijing’s stricter tax scrutiny around fund outflows from the mainland would impact business for banks.

Hong Kong is also courting asset managers by proposing a tax regime change that will exempt private equity and potentially hedge fund managers from paying tax on their earnings from carried interest and performance fees.

In every aspect from trading activity, opportunities to lend against physical assets and real estate, as well as investment, the city has been quite “strong”, Pagliara said.

The executive, whose remit spans Greater China, South-east Asia, Global South Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, said Deutsche Bank has hired more than 30 private bankers across emerging markets teams so far in 2026.

Headcount is growing still on a net basis, he added. The bank does not provide a regional breakdown for its assets under management or headcount.

The German lender aims to boost its wealth AUM to top 1 trillion euros (US$1.1 billion) by 2028. The latest number is 846 billion euros, including the retail bank, as at the end of June.

South-east Asia, where Singapore is a booking centre, is expanding and trailing very closely just behind Greater China for the year, Pagliara said. Singapore and Indonesia are the private bank’s largest centres in the region based on revenue and assets, he added.

“Traditionally in Indonesia, when you see these challenges economically and politically, I think you see some large families adjusting their positions,” Pagliara said.

The bank provides corporate and investment banking services in Indonesia, the region’s largest economy. Deutsche Bank is also trying to develop a larger presence among offshore clients from Malaysia and Thailand as well, he said.

Replying to a question on the bank’s commitment to the Middle East, where the private bank is present in both Dubai and Saudi Arabia, Pagliara said it remains positive on the medium- to long- term while acknowledging that “the current situation has additional complexity”.

Deutsche Bank also has an onshore booking platform in Saudi Arabia, he said, adding that it sees an opportunity to increase footprint there.

Separately, the bank has started using agentic artificial intelligence in checking wealthy clients’ source of wealth in Singapore and Hong Kong from September and will later use this across the entire private bank.

Its advisors in Dubai are also adopting this for accounts booked in Singapore.

Usage of agentic AI is expected to support an increase in client onboarding volumes. Pagliara’s emerging markets coverage region is on track to onboard about 30 per cent more clients in 2026, from a year ago, the bank said. BLOOMBERG