St James’s Place Singapore Alliance Taps Expat Demand

Jackie Bennion

21 November 2018

addition to the Singapore expat network fits with its ambitions in the region. The FTSE-100 firm, which has over £100 billion ($128 billion) in client funds under management, opened a Singapore office in 2017 to build local market capacity and effectively start replicating its UK business investing in expat-focused services. Since establishing a presence in Asia in 2014, SJP’s Singapore branch has doubled in size.

Joining Expatland “allows us to contribute to supporting expats who are navigating challenges on their own,” the firm said in a statement, and help expats “manage their wealth in a way that reflects their personal circumstances,” which includes all the planning aspects of moving to a different country.

Expatland as a business service has its roots in the eponymous book by John Marcarian about his own expat journey. The Australian entrepreneur and tax specialist wrote the guide back in 2015 to help other expats plan a move overseas and make the experience as painless as possible.

What it taps into is a “virtual country of 244 million people, who live all over the world. It’s not one single place but everywhere,” the author said.

On the back of the book’s utility, Marcarian launched the Expatland Global Network in October 2018 to provide face-to-face city level advisory support in key expat spots globally.

The non-profit network brings together specialists -- who might not normally work together -- with essential local knowledge and insight, with new members in St James’s Place adding a fundamental layer of wealth management advice to this important community.

E-Team’s Singapore lead Boon Tan said that both companies are thoroughly aligned in their “passion to make life easier for people on the move.”

A survey by HSBC in October noted that Singapore had edged out New Zealand, Germany, Canada and Bahrain as being the best place in the world for expats, but added that jurisdictions are putting pressure on the Asian city-state. The HSBC Expat Explorer survey asked more than 22,000 expats about their experience abroad.

Singapore retains its overall top three position in the “economic” category, but it is under competitive pressure. Some 65 per cent of expats in the Middle East (specifically Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia) experience better earnings prospects which is consistent with last year. Similar to last year, almost one in three expats in Singapore did not see their disposable income rise (35 per cent) nor were they able to save more (36 per cent) in spite of better career and income prospects.