BNY Mellon has expanded its Asia-Pacific separately managed accounts business by adding Singapore to Hong Kong to its jurisdiction and naming a Singapore-based distribution head.

BNY Mellon, the US-headquartered investment management firm, has expanded its Asia-Pacific separately managed accounts business by adding Singapore to Hong Kong to its jurisdiction and naming a Singapore-based distribution head.

The company has added Singapore to Hong Kong as the jurisdictions in which the Asia-Pacific SMA business can operate, naming Chris Faddy as head of distribution of managed investments based in the city-state. 

In this role, Faddy will be responsible for building the business initially in the main hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong and will identify and work with intermediaries in both centres looking to establish their services in high net worth investment propositions. He joins from Credit Suisse Asset Management in Singapore where he served as head of distribution for Asia ex-Japan. 

The SMA platform gives wealth managers the ability to offer multi-manager and multi-currency portfolios at an entry level of less than $1 million per portfolio. They will be able to give individual investors access to strategies that would typically be reserved for institutional investors. In addiition, the platform also allows private banks to maintain custody over the clients' assets and tailor investment positions to their clients' needs. 

"We are seeing demand for some highly-engaged intermediaries wanting to leap ahead of competition as a result of major shifts in Asia's private banking industry that are altering the ways in which affluent investors and their families manage wealth and the services they expect from their advisors," said AJ Harper, president and chief executive for BNY Mellon's Asia-Pacific SMA business.

The company received licence approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission in June to set up an SMA business in Asia. In November, the Monetary Authority of Singapore granted it a capital markets services licence.

"Singapore and Hong Kong are critical markets for BNY Mellon's Asia operations, and we want to support their status as elite private banking and wealth management centres in Asia," added Steve Lackey, Asia-Pacific chairman.

BNY Mellon Investment Management records some $1.5 trillion in assets under management worldwide as at 30 September 2013.