People
Getting glorious
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 07:41
Smiling staffers give advice over gleaming counters, as water dispensers and magazine stands alleviate any wait amid round-the-clock service and ATM machines.
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 Financial magazine editor Tiger Chow says the need for wealth management is growing. [Courtesy of Tiger Chow]
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It is a far cry from the planned economy in the early days of New China.
"Banks back then served as government agencies, with tellers working behind iron bars over counters 1.5 m high," says Tiger Chow, the editor-in-chief of financial magazine Money Weekly.
"In the planned economy, the bank, with its limited number of outlets, only sucked in deposits from retail customers," he says.
It was a reflection of an almost non-existent state of financial management, during a time when people hardly had any spare cash and personal wealth was more like a badge of dishonor than a guarantee of a good life.
Money talks now. Multimillionaires from the boomtowns in the Pearl River Delta to the sordid mining districts of Shanxi province are revered like movie stars and sports celebrities. The national and local media spare no effort in pandering to their readers by playing up rich lists.
Many readers are also keen to know how these billionaires invest their money to become even richer.
Despite its limited scope, wealth management has become one of the fastest growing financial services for people on the Chinese mainland.
"China has seen a very rapid increase in affluence, prompting high net worth individuals to search for channels to manage their newly gained wealth," says Chow, whose publication is touted as the country's first and largest professional magazine targeting middle-class families.
A diversified scope of products now offers consumers many choices, including trusts, futures, art collections, venture capital and all kinds of derivatives.
Hurun Report founder Rupert Hoogewerf received scathing criticism when he released his first Chinese fortune list in 1999 to the public.
In the public eye, being rich was associated with corruption.
Few people wanted to cooperate. Tax officials, media and even kidnappers targeted many of the individuals he labeled as part of the rich.
"About eight years ago, we tried to promote the idea of wealth management by putting forward the slogan of 'if you don't manage wealth, then wealth will ignore you'. Now it is deeply ingrained in our lives," Chow says.
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To some extent, the stock and housing markets are still the most important approaches for Chinese investors to increase the value of their wealth, moves that have led to skyrocketing property prices and a roller-coaster-like performance of equity markets in recent years.
But in the eyes of Chow, who has seen his weekly magazine facing more competitors in recent times, the improvement of services for all is the key to the rapid transition of wealth management offered by financial institutions.
"Wealth management is no longer the privilege of the rich. It has become a widespread idea and lifestyle."
