Singapore sells itself as the place where
the world’s wealth goes to work. The
data says it goes to sleep. On 22nd
October 2026, Citi Wealth and RFI Global published Singapore at Heart,
Global in Possibilities. Cash and
liquid deposits make up 72 per cent of onshore affluent assets. They make up 74 per cent of offshore booked
assets. Only 26 to 28 per cent goes into
investments. Affluent and high-net-worth
clients in the United States hold 58 per cent in long-term investments and 42
per cent in deposits. Hong Kong keeps 76
per cent of its offshore assets in deposits.
There is progress. Mutual fund ownership among Singapore’s
high-net-worth investors rose from 11 per cent in 2022 to 31 per cent in 2026,
the highest in Asia. Average
high-net-worth assets rose 6 per cent to US$1.5 million. Affluent assets rose 5 per cent to more than
US$565,000. Some 76 per cent of
Singaporeans aged 55 and above have a will or succession plan, against 41 per
cent in Hong Kong. The progress is
real. So is the cash mountain.
The Strategic Landscape
Singapore attracts wealth. Indonesia supplies 41 per cent of its
cross-border banking customers and Malaysia 36 per cent. UBS counts 244,000 US-dollar millionaires and
55 billionaires. The Economic
Development Board reports that single-family offices rose tenfold in five
years, to more than 2,000 by the end of 2024.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
rewards the arrival. The Section 13O and
13U incentives require S$20 million and S$50 million respectively in designated
investments at application. They require
the lower of 10 per cent of assets or S$10 million in qualifying local
investments. Qualifying investments
include SGX-listed equities, qualifying debt securities, and non-listed
Singapore operating companies. Cash in a
local bank account does not count. Run
the arithmetic for a S$500 million family office. The S$10 million requirement is 2 per cent of
assets. The family meets it and leaves
the rest in deposits. The incentive
attracts capital. It does not guarantee
deployment.
Three structural gaps explain the
rest. The infographic describes the
first as “structural friction in reverse”, a phrase it attributes to The
Architecture of Resilience. Families
lack an investment team, a mandate framework, and written deployment
criteria. Local private equity and
public markets are thin for the ticket sizes these families need. Trusted local deal pipelines do not exist, so
cash waits for an offshore opportunity that may never arrive.
The Psychological Drivers
Loss aversion. The
late Dr Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate and Eugene Higgins Professor of
Psychology, Emeritus, at Princeton University, and the late Dr Amos Nathan
Tversky, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, built prospect theory.
They estimated that a loss weighs about 2.25 times a gain of the same size. Cash cannot show a loss on a statement. A fund can. Families choose the statement.
Status quo bias. Dr
William Samuelson, Professor at Boston University, and Dr Richard Jay
Zeckhauser, Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy
School, published their study in 1988. They
showed that people disproportionately stick with the status quo. Deposits are the status quo. Doing nothing feels like a decision, and it is
the most expensive one.
Scar tissue. Singapore
has its own memory. After Lehman
Brothers collapsed in 2008, about 10,000 retail investors lost more than S$500
million in structured products linked to the bank. Distributors were accused of misselling to the
elderly. MAS banned ten distributors
from selling similar products starting 1st July 2009. Hong Leong Finance received two years. DBS
Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Maybank received six months each. Investors eventually recovered between 21.5
and 70.8 per cent of their money. Families
that remember the Minibonds do not trust a product they cannot explain to a
grandchild.
Succession simplicity. A
deposit is easy to explain to a beneficiary. A private fund needs an investment committee,
reporting, and a beneficiary who understands what they own. Families choose the product that survives a
dinner-table conversation.
Safety first. Capital
from Indonesia and Malaysia came for stability. My reading is that capital that fled
instability seeks stillness. Stillness
has a price.
The Limits of Cash
Inflation. The
six-month Singapore Treasury bill cleared at 1.90 per cent on 8th October
2026. The ten-year Savings Bond averages
2.32 per cent. Core inflation was 2.2
per cent in August. Cash loses ground. The S&P 500 returned 14.1 per cent in
2026 through 15th October 2026.
Protection. The
Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation insures S$100,000 per depositor per
member bank. A family with S$100 million
at one bank has 0.1 per cent insured. In
2013, Cyprus converted 47.5 per cent of deposits above €100,000 at Bank of
Cyprus into shares. At Laiki Bank,
uninsured depositors were wiped out.
Those depositors also thought a bank was a vault.
Legacy. A will is a
list. It is not liquidity. Prince Rogers Nelson died on 21st April
2016 without a will. The administrator
valued his estate at US$82.3 million.
The IRS said US$163.2 million.
They settled at US$156.4 million, and it took six years to close the
estate. The lesson is liquidity and
structure, not Minnesota law.
Heirs. Capgemini
reports that 81 per cent of inheritors plan to switch firms within one to two
years of an inheritance. The global
wealth transfer is US$83.5 trillion. A
cash pile with no mandate and no governance gives heirs every reason to leave
and take it with them.
The missed recovery.
Liquidity protects you in a sell-off only with a deployment plan. The S&P 500 fell in the first quarter of
2026. It rose 15 per cent in the
second. Cash sat through both.
The Legal Case for Insurance
Life insurance solves legacy problems that
deposits do not. Singapore law sets out
why. A valid nomination lets the insurer
pay without a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration. A trust nomination under section 49L of the
Insurance Act 1966 creates a trust for the nominees. The proceeds fall outside the estate and
beyond the reach of the policy owner’s creditors. The trust nomination overrides the will. It is irrevocable unless the nominees
consent. A revocable nomination under
section 49M is flexible and does not protect against estate creditors. Section 73 of the Conveyancing and Law of
Property Act 1886 offers a statutory trust route for policies effected for a
spouse or children. Singapore levies no
estate duty on deaths since 15th February 2008. So, this is not a tax play. It is liquidity, speed, and structure.
Jumbo policies carry a catch. The Policy Owners’ Protection Scheme covers
100 per cent of guaranteed benefits only up to S$500,000 of guaranteed sum
assured and S$100,000 of guaranteed surrender value per life assured per
insurer. Non-guaranteed bonuses and
investment returns are not covered.
Place the cover with more than one insurer.
The three propositions below are
illustrations. Take a S$500 million
family office. If the Citi ratios held,
S$360 to S$370 million would sit in deposits.
I size the three propositions at 18 to 30 per cent of that cash. That leaves about half the portfolio in
cash. This is a ceiling on ambition, not
a floor.
Proposition One: The Succession Reserve
For: families whose liquid estate sits in deposits.
Sizing: 5 to 10 per cent of idle cash, S$18 to S$37 million
in the example.
- Policy: a jumbo participating whole
life policy, funded by a single premium or a five-year pay.
- Life assured and owner: the
principal. A second policy covers the
spouse.
- Placement: at least two insurers,
with no more than half with any one.
- Nomination: a section 49L trust
nomination for spouse and children. Use
a trust for minors.
- Purpose: first-call cash for estate
costs, debts, and equalisation between heirs.
- Fixes: succession simplicity and
probate delay. One claim form releases
cash that deposits would freeze.
- Limits: underwriting, surrender
charges, and non-guaranteed bonuses. The
trust nomination is irrevocable. Foreign
courts may not honour a Singapore nomination for non-resident heirs.
Proposition Two: The Deployment Policy
For: families with cash and no investment team.
Sizing: 10 to 15 per cent of idle cash, S$36 to S$55 million.
- Policy: an investment-linked policy,
funded by a single premium or three annual premiums.
- Mandate: a written investment policy
statement. It sets objectives,
allocation bands, a rebalancing rule, and a drawdown protocol. The principal, spouse, and adviser sign it.
- Deployment: stage entry over 12 to 24
months in pre-agreed tranches. That
blunts loss aversion.
- Governance: an investment committee
of three, one of them an independent professional.
- Nomination: a trust nomination for
the heirs.
- Evidence: investment-linked policies
are 44 per cent of weighted new business premiums in the first half of 2026, up
24.2 per cent to S$1.59 billion.
- Limits: the insurer’s fund panel,
charges, and surrender charges.
Investment performance is not guaranteed. It is not a family office. Keep the 10 per cent local investment for the
13O or 13U. I know of no published list
that counts a policy.
Proposition Three: The Equalisation Engine
For: families with an illiquid core and several heirs.
Sizing: 3 to 5 per cent of idle cash, S$11 to S$18 million.
- Policy: a survivorship policy on both
spouses, paying at the second death.
- Owner: an irrevocable Singapore trust
with a licensed trust company under the Trust Companies Act 2005 and a
protector.
- Funding: premiums from family office
cash flow. Fund it while solvent. Section 73B of the Conveyancing and Law of
Property Act voids transfers made to defeat creditors.
- Distribution: the trustee buys out
non-operating heirs or pays equalisation sums under a letter of wishes. The 100-year perpetuity cap under the Civil
Law Act applies.
- Fixes: forced sale of the business or
the property to pay heirs.
- Limits: a long commitment and
uncertain timing. Trust costs and the
policy owner’s irrevocability apply.
Heirs’ home countries may tax the payout.
Why Insurance, Not Bancassurance
Bancassurance is a distribution
channel. Banks sell their partner’s
policies to their own deposit customers.
I do not say bank staff lie. I
say the shelf is narrow and the incentives point at the bank. Look at the channel. Bank representatives wrote 32.9 per cent of
weighted new business premiums in 2025.
Financial adviser representatives wrote 35.7 per cent. In 2025, advisers led all channels with
S$70.4 billion in total sum assured and 45.3 per cent of the year’s
increase. Banks gather premium. Specialists write the big cover.
Look at the shelf. DBS partners with Manulife for life
insurance. Allianz bought HSBC Life
Singapore for S$2.9 billion, with a 15-year exclusive agreement for HSBC Bank’s
distribution. An exclusive shelf cannot
diversify your insurer. With a S$500,000
guaranteed cap per insurer, a jumbo case needs diversification.
Look at the incentives. In 2016, regulators fined Wells Fargo US$185
million. Employees opened more than 2
million accounts that may not have been authorised, to hit sales targets. Richard Adams Cordray, then Director of the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the bank built a compensation
program that made underhanded sales practices possible. The Minibonds were sold by banks too.
Look at concentration. Your bank already holds 72 to 74 per cent of
your wealth in deposits. A policy sold
through the same relationship deepens that dependence. The bank’s best argument is that its staff
know your finances. They know your
balance sheet. They do not know your
estate.
Use an adviser who can underwrite
financially, place across insurers, and sit beside your lawyer and trustee.
The Call to Action
Do three things this month.
1. Audit the cash. List every deposit by bank. Compare each with the S$100,000 insured. Count the months each balance sat idle.
2. Size the liquidity gap. Add up what your estate needs in the first 90
days: costs, debts, equalisation payments, and taxes in your heirs’ countries.
3. Write one page. Who decides, which allocation bands apply,
and what triggers action.
With this, you have the foundations for a
discussion with a financial consultant of my team’s level of experience and track
record. The world’s capital is
here. It is waiting. So are your heirs.
Terence Nunis | Executive Chairman, Equinox Zenith
& Red Sycamore | Author, The 1% Playbook: The Billionaire Cheat Code
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