Talent pool in the Singapore wealth management industry : lessons from the financial crisis.

57 p.The high paced economic growth and wealth generation in the Asia-Pacific region for the recent decades has resulted in an unprecedented growth of the Singapore wealth management industry. Despite conscious efforts made by the government to create regulatory and business frameworks to encourage this growth, it seems that the fast transition has created a situation whereby the size and quality of the talent pool has not been able to meet the demands of the growing number of wealthy clients. Although the booming markets prior to the recent financial crisis made it easy for virtually every client to make impressive returns on their investments (which in turn made the job of their relationship managers very easy); the painful ramifications of the crisis proved otherwise and exposed many of the problems in the industry, not just in Singapore but worldwide. This paper will examine the issues pertaining to the client-facing talent pool of the Singapore wealth management industry, and attempt to outline issues that need to be addressed by the public and private actors to improve talent standards. This in turn could possibly help bring Singapore to the position of leading wealth management hub not just in the region, but in the world.Master of Science (International Political Economy