APAC remains the fastest growing wealth market globally. Accenture estimates $363T of assets in the region in 2026. Yet for western WealthTech vendors, an Asian expansion the market remains a challenging maneuver. I sat down with Patrick Donaldson, founder of Mkt Dev APAC, to talk through what works and what doesn’t.

We’ll probably do a video or podcast for future collaborations. For now the time zones mean you only get the 2D Q&A here! I move to London in 3 weeks which will give me access to just about everywhere during the business day.

Patrick has spent nearly three decades on both sides of the table. Originally in the industry managing U/HNW portfolios in the UK and APAC. More recently, as a WealthTech market development leader building go-to-market strategies for Thomson Reuters, Refinitiv, and LSEG. What follows is a playbook for avoiding the expensive mistakes that sink many APAC expansion plans before they start.

Steve: You’ve got a fairly unusual background – wealth management practitioner turned FinTech go-to-market specialist. How does that shape how you think about APAC market entry? 

Patrick: I’ve been the buyer and the seller. I know what it’s like to sit in front of a CIO and discuss your platform. I used to be that CIO’s colleague. That dual perspective exposes misalignment that pure-play vendors miss. Platforms built around beautiful features and dashboards. These can be Instantly (but politely) rejected in Singapore because they didn’t fit an advisor’s actual daily workflow.

The compliance steps, the client reporting cadence, the way approvals actually move through a private bank. The vendor thought they were selling innovation. The firm saw a solution that didn’t understand their advisor’s job. 

I’m hearing this consistently from senior wealth management executives across the region. People who’ve spent 20+ years running private banking operations in Singapore and Hong Kong. They see a fundamental disconnect between what WealthTech vendors build and what APAC wealth managers actually need on the ground. That’s why when I talk about APAC expansion, I’m always thinking about what actually closes deals with front-office teams. That is different to what looks good in a pitch deck. 

Steve: that’s something really notable and almost unique to Wealth Management or Private Banking. Jurisdictional differences are far more significant than in institutional workflows. A PM in Boston or Singapore do pretty much the same thing. Same for institutional sales and trading. In WM, you need to pay more attention as the distinct workflows, driven by regulatory factors, are unmissable.

What do you see as making APAC so different from EMEA or North America? 

Patrick:

1. APAC’s mass affluent and HNW populations are growing at a pace EMEA and North America can’t match. The middle class is projected to grow from 2 billion in 2020 to 3.5 billion by 2030, versus stagnant numbers in the West. But the market is not monolithic. Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, India, and other markets have different client expectations, competitive landscapes, and buying cultures. 
2. The “digital arms race” in APAC is real – Super Apps, mobile-first platforms, gamification of investing. Equally though, that coexists with deeply conservative U/HNW wealth management where relationships and trust still dominate. 
3. What many people outside the region don’t realize is the enormous gap between retail excellence and HNW inertia in APAC. Some of the world’s best digital investment platforms are based in the region, but private banking departments are far more conservative. They’re often the last to adopt new technology. That gap is exactly where the B2B WealthTech opportunity sits. 

I think that makes perfect sense. Most of the innovation has been much closer to retail / digital broking – i.e. the Robin Hood and Interactive Brokers type segments. Rakuten probably a great early Asian example. Private Banking still looks a little bit more like other markets. I assume it’s regulatory but I was shocked at the paper driven processes in Europe and the US. Online broking KYC is slick, digital and nearly instant in Asia.

Surely we are reaching “Peak AI” so I don’t want “yet another cliched AI discussion”. That being said, let’s spend a moment on AI and the Advisor. What do you see? How is the market evolving and reacting?

Patrick: the advisor role is shifting fast. AI-augmented advisors are expected to see 25-40% productivity gains, but APAC firms are still recruiting experienced RMs aggressively. Technology enables, it doesn’t replace. In Hong Kong, roughly 3/4 of clients are comfortable letting AI guide wealth management decisions. That is much higher than parts of Europe or the US. But there’s still a gap between GenAI hype and operational reality. 

The “augmented advisor” model is where the real opportunity lies. AI that automates low-value tasks (documentation, reporting, client query triage) and frees advisors for high-value relationship work. In cost-conscious APAC wealth firms running tight margins, anything that demonstrably improves advisor productivity gets budget approval faster. If this is your focus area, maybe bump an Asia expansion up your priority list.

At the high level, I don’t think that’s unique to APAC. No doubt that these firms see AI playing a huge role in exactly the type of augmentation you describe above. So thematically, firms with an advisor productivity angle should be well positioned, they just need to account for local workflows?

Patrick: correct. Laser-focus on advisor productivity: auto-drafting proposals, next-best-action recommendations, hyper-personalized client insights. These use cases excite APAC wealth managers. Generic AI chatbots don’t. 

You talk about the five fatal mistakes. What are they?

Patrick:

1. “Singapore (or HK) is just a small London (or Boston).”

They are not. Client expectations, competitive dynamics, and sales culture are fundamentally different. What works at Canary Wharf doesn’t automatically work at Raffles Place. 

Instead: Invest in understanding the local buying culture before you design your GTM. Spend the first month listening, not pitching. 

2. The shotgun approach: “We’ll test out the region.”

Singapore vs Hong Kong vs Australia are entirely different propositions. Singapore is the hub for Southeast Asia. Hong Kong is the gateway to Greater China. Australia has its own ecosystem. Treating “APAC” as one market is a recipe for expensive failure.

Instead: Pick one beachhead market (Singapore for most B2B WealthTech), prove your model there, then expand deliberately. Don’t spread thin across three markets on Day 1. 

3. “Our US / EMEA value proposition will work there.” 

This is probably the single most expensive assumption I see. European and US companies consistently assume their solutions will work in APAC without modification – and they’re consistently wrong. Enterprise sales cycles in APAC are longer and more relationship-dependent.

The pain points maybe similar, but how they manifest in a Asian private bank (vs US/EMEA) are worlds apart. 

Instead: Treat your product-market fit as a hypothesis, not a fact. Validate with 20+ local wealth managers before committing resources. Adapt messaging to local advisor productivity, operational efficiency, and client experience. 

4. “We can manage it remotely from London“

By the time you decide you need someone in-market, your competitors already have boots on the ground. A Zoom call from London or New York is not impactful the way sitting across the table is. APAC business culture rewards physical presence and personal trust in ways remote management can’t replicate. 

Instead: Start with an advisory relationship. Someone who knows the buyers and can get you 10 qualified meetings in 90 days. Budget for regular in-market time or engage a local partner who’s already at the table. The $500K+ VP of APAC hire comes after you’ve validated demand. 

5. “Our product demo will sell itself.”

No. It won’t. APAC buyers don’t want to see your features – they want to know you understand their problem. A polished demo before you’ve listened to what the firm actually needs simply kills credibility.

Instead, firms winning in APAC are the ones whose CRO / senior leadership came to the region to listen. You then go home, assess suitability, messaging and resources.  

Thanks Patrick. That’s pretty thorough and I think I can name a firm or two that tried every one of those! A lot of them overlap, the product selling itself feeds into belief that the extra-regional value prop will work. Every firm needs to make adjustments to account for regional differences, in workflow and in data.

This feels like enough for a part 1, Patrick. Why don’t we follow up next week and drill into some of the solutions. We can look at:

1. How should a WealthTech CEO think about APAC?
2. Some proven but less commonly employed tactics for market entry
3. What does a strong market entry look like, with some realistic timelines and resource levels.

Thank you for taking the time to read!