There is little need for some private banks to set up a booking centre in Hong Kong because ultra high and high net worth (U/HNW) clients are more global than ever and are choosing to book assets elsewhere, Laurent Pellet, limited partner and global head of external asset managers (EAM), Lombard Odier Group, told Asian Private Banker.

“Hong Kong-based clients are increasingly international. Many maintain assets across Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and other jurisdictions,” he said.

The bank, he added, is able to “provide a consistent client experience across all booking centres” with its Singapore presence to serve Hong Kong clients.

“We don’t need to have a dedicated team on the ground,” he said.

Pellet’s comments come as more wealth and asset managers are looking at Hong Kong. The city narrowly overtook Switzerland as the world’s largest cross-border booking centre – the result of inflows from wealthy Chinese individuals and cross-boundary wealth schemes.

Hong Kong booked US$2.95 trillion in international assets last year, with Switzerland clocking roughly US$2.94 trillion, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Global Wealth Report 2026.

An October 2025 study by Research and Markets showed that the average HNWI from Hong Kong invests over 40% of their wealth offshore, which is higher than the Asia Pacific average. The report cites data from business intelligence firm GlobalData.

Hong Kong-based independent wealth managers previously told APB why they recently set up offices in Switzerland to better advise Asian UHNWIs based in Europe amid more Hong Kong HNWIs looking to spread their assets across Switzerland and Singapore.  

“Hong Kong is an opportunistic and interesting market for us, but we do not have any teams there as we approach them through our booking centres in Singapore,” he said.

Managing EAM onboarding expectations

Pellet heads the US$278 billion AUM pure-play bank’s global EAM business. Aside from Singapore, the bank has an EAM business in Bermuda, Geneva, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Nassau and Zurich.

The issue of know-your-client and onboarding delays that many EAMs face is not exclusive to Asia, because custodian banks must balance speed with risk control and regulatory obligations, Pellet noted. “That’s a fact. Regulatory requirements differ across different jurisdictions and may also influence account opening timelines,” he said.

There are also differing expectations about service speed, with many EAMs also expecting responsiveness “similar to that of a fintech,” Pellet added. “Fintechs, for example, can open accounts very fast with fewer documentation requirements. We are simply not in the same camp,” he said.

His sentiments echo the perennial frictions other private banks have highlighted about the private bank-EAM relationship, despite both parties requiring each other for AUM growth and added client reach. “We are a custodian bank with other services and advantages, though the speed might not be the same,” he said.

“That said, most banks today, including us, are investing in digital onboarding solutions, which will play an increasingly important role in the future,” Pellet added.

EAM-bank tech disconnect

With some private banks turning to agentic artificial intelligence tools to expedite the onboarding process, Pellet said that custodian banks also cannot expect their software to simply work with the capabilities of every EAM.

“EAMs still select their own portfolio management systems, so it’s not one-size-fits-all,” he said.

Custodian banks, Pellet said, must be agile and capable of connecting different systems to their core system, and “not just in a one-way feed where we send information to their system, but in an omni-channel way.”

“Instead of an EAM working with 10, 15, or 20 different custodian banks having to log into every single bank to place an order, they just connect to their PMS, push a button, and the order goes right away to the right custodian bank. That is the only way custodian bank services can evolve,” he said.

Balancing AI development

As Asia’s wealth market matures, survival will depend on combining scalable AI efficiencies with high-touch service for UHNW clients, Pellet explained. “A maturing market brings consequences: most companies will have to find a way to sustain this business,” he said.

With Asian EAMs and private banks competing in an increasingly fragmented space and all chasing the same pool of wealth, this is making it difficult to scale AUM and forcing some EAMs to consolidate just to scale.

“The most successful banks and EAMs will likely be those that combine human expertise with scalable digital capabilities,” he said.

This comes as some MFOs emphasise AI being key to scale and relevance, providing boutiques with “institutional-grade” capacity, while warning that wealthy clients could abandon private banks for EAMs if given AI treatment.

“If they want to contain their increasing regulatory costs, they need to achieve efficiencies through AI. It’s a long journey, and it will strongly depend on one EAM to the next,” he said.