The past five years have seen a dramatic drop in the number of British expat clients seeking financial advice in Asia.
Research by International Adviser discovered that, in 2015, UK citizens in the region accounted for between 51-90% of clients for the majority of advisers.
But in 2020, more than half of advisory businesses reported that British expats made up between 1-20% of their overall customers.
The remaining 45% said they make up between 71-90% of their client bank.
They have been replaced by:
- Other western expats – 45% of advisers have between 51-70% in their client bank, compared with all respondents having 0-31% in 2015;
- Locals now feature heavily – 42% of respondents said they represent 71-90% of their customers;
- Chinese clients saw a big shift as well. In 2015, half of advice firms had no Chinese clients, while the other half had 61-70%. In 2020, only a fifth (22%) of respondents had no Chinese clients, while 31% said they made up 61-80% of their client book;
- South-east Asian clients were largely under-represented five years ago, as most advice firms (66%) had none, while 34% had between 11-20%. Now, only 8% of companies have no south-east Asian customers.
Despite these changes, British expats still make up the majority of non-local clients for 45% of advice businesses, followed by 31% other expats, 12% south-east Asian, and 12% Chinese.
M&A
There has been a lot of activity within the advisory M&A market in several regions across the world, and Asia has not fallen behind.
Two in three (66%) respondents to IA’s survey said they have either entered or will enter into an M&A deal.
But when it came to their acquisition strategy, only 25% of firms set out plans to acquire other businesses, and no company was looking to be bought.
The remaining 75% did not have any M&A strategy in place.
Social media
Interestingly, Asia is the only region in IA’s research where 100% of respondents integrate social media within their marketing strategy.
The most used and useful platform is LinkedIn, with 45% finding it vital and 33% considering it important.
Twitter came second with 42% believing being active on it as either vital or important, while the majority (45%) said it was useful for their business.
Facebook followed suit as two in three advisers said it was important to have a presence on the social networking website, and 24% finding it useful.
Instagram was the least used social media platform, with only 10% of firms incorporating it into their marketing strategy.
