The quote “Bearish brokers have skinny children” stuck after attending a wealth management forum. This simple phase speak volumes about the issues facing not just the wealth management industry, but the whole investment community. The issues discussed at the forum were starting to sound like a broken record. No clear solutions was offered.

There have been no change to the challenges faced by the wealth management community. The same old issues of being product-focused, bottom-line driven culture, short time horizon, high cost, inappropriate remuneration structure, sales targets etc are still there. There have been no asset allocation and risk have not been integrated enough into investment decisions which leads to concentration risks.

The Asian short term trading mentality was highlight many times. Private banks have commonly been used as a brokerage to execute trades. Many RMs are also demanding short-term products, perhaps to satisfy demand. This means that ...