Bank of Singapore Sees Asia Rich Shift to Paying Fees for Advice

Bank of Singapore Ltd., which recently bought the wealth-management units of Barclays Plc in Asia, sees the region’s private-banking industry shifting towards a fee-based model at the expense of the traditional practice of charging rich clients commissions on their transactions.

“The whole industry is moving into advisory,” said Bank of Singapore Chief Executive Officer Bahren Shaari, speaking about private banking in Asia. At a time of volatility in global financial markets, rich clients are more cautious about trading and increasingly prefer the relative consistency of returns from fee-based managed portfolios, Shaari said in an interview Friday at the bank’s headquarters.