A new survey by Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management notes generational differences among Asian high net worth investors, particularly the increasing importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
Asian HNWIs are placing more importance on ESG factors when making investment decisions, and this shift in priorities is being driven by younger investors, who are 17 percent more likely to consider these factors compared to their elders, according to the «New Wealth Rising» survey.
Published by Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management (RBC WM), the survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, included respondents in Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. It noted that 72 percent of HNWIs in Asia agree that it is increasingly important to consider ESG factors when investing, compared to just 43 percent among their Western counterparts.
«In Asia we are seeing a changing of the guard,» Michael Reed, head of Wealth Management, Southeast Asia and chief executive, RBC Singapore, said about the survey findings.
Reed said the younger members of wealthy Asian families are educated abroad and bring back new ideas about how to manage family wealth, and «increasingly see their investment activity as an extension of their ethical values.» In contrast, Western investors were introduced to ethical investing much earlier, with the advent of socially responsible investing in the 1980s.
Key Findings
The survey also noted several differences between Asian and Western HNWIs: the former group is more worried about global economic uncertainty, with 56 percent citing it as among their leading concerns compared to 41 percent among Western HNWIs.
Asian investors are also more focused on wealth accumulation, with less risky investments and greater diversification being their main priorities in the next five years. More than 61 percent of Asian HNWIs said their investment goal is to increase wealth, compared to 45 percent of respondents from Western markets.
