Private-bank onboarding time still a sticking point despite Singapore’s push for speed

[SINGAPORE] The drawn-out process of private-bank onboarding remains a key bottleneck for Singapore’s wealthy, industry participants have said, even as the authorities push to cut account-opening times for the ultra-high-net-worth to under a month.

In May, the Private Banking Industry Group, an industry-led committee that is a collaboration between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the private banking industry, set a goal to cut accounting opening times for most clients to within a month by end-2026.

Yet, industry participants and relationship managers told The Business Times that the broader onboarding process can still take three to 12 months, particularly for complex cases.

One sticking point is in the verifying of the source of wealth accumulated over decades and from multiple jurisdictions.

Kylie Luo, executive director and tax advisory leader, asset and wealth management at BDO, noted that the challenge is heightened for established families in which wealth has been accumulated over many years, as documentation may not be maintained to today’s standards.

“The objective is not to expect families to have complied with rules that did not exist at the time, but to give banks and regulators sufficient comfort on the provenance of the funds,” she said.

Bryan Low, head of international wealth management in KGI Singapore, noted that the part that takes the most time is the verifying of sources of wealth across borders.

“A client who built a business over 30 years has his records in another language, in another system, and some of them decades old,” he said.

Ryan Lin, director at Bayfront Law, said that the level of scrutiny around beneficial ownership and source of funds has tightened considerably since the time wealth structures were first established.

“Singapore is increasingly trying to position itself as a jurisdiction in which family offices can establish a long-term, substantive presence… (rather) than just a place to book investment assets.”

Lin added that the delays at the private banks can be a bigger practical bottleneck than the application to MAS itself.

Private banks seen as bottleneck

But private banks have said they are able to open accounts for new clients within weeks – even days for straightforward cases.

A DBS spokesperson said there was no single bottleneck because every client relationship is different.

A combination of policy changes, process optimisation, artificial intelligence and agentic capability have enabled the bank to onboard 20 per cent more new wealth clients in the first five months of 2026 than in the corresponding period in 2025, cutting overall onboarding turnaround time by 50 per cent.

The lender added: “In some cases, we have been able to complete the process and open accounts for new clients within a week.”

Adriel Loh, global head of compliance at the Bank of Singapore (BOS), said AI has cut the time taken to gather, validate and assess source-of-wealth information, particularly for clients with complex, cross-border business and investment interests.

“A significant portion of the assessment work is now ‘front-loaded’ in the process before the relationship manager engages the prospective client. This reduces information gaps and minimises back-and-forth during onboarding,” he noted.

Straightforward cases, depending on the client profile, could be onboarded within a day. The median time taken, which includes more complex cases, is 15 business days, lower than the six-week industry median, said Loh.

Alison Lim, CEO of Pictet Wealth Management in Singapore, noted that account opening times have come down significantly this year, from an average of 70 calendar days last year to around 40, and it could be quicker for priority cases.

“Getting it right the first time is the key to speeding up account opening,” she said.

Part of the apparent discrepancy in how long it takes to open an account comes down to what is being measured, said BDO’s Luo, drawing a distinction between account opening and the broader onboarding process.

Where a client has all the necessary documents ready, with no issues requiring further investigation, it is possible to expedite the process and open an account in around four to six weeks – likely the time frame some banks have in mind, she noted.

In reality, though, the process can take considerably longer: Cases could stretch to eight to 10 months, typically where the client has a complex ownership structure, connections across multiple jurisdictions, or where the bank needs additional information to complete its checks, she added.

A neutral verification party as a solution?

KGI’s Low noted that one idea worth exploring to reduce account opening time would be having a source of wealth documents prepared to a common standard by a neutral professional firm.

“Today, a large family proves the same fortune to every bank it approaches, and each bank starts from zero. Same documents out of the storeroom, five times over,” he said.

“To be clear, no bank can outsource its know-your-customer process. Each bank must still do the checks independently, and each bank has its own standard.”

But independently prepared documentation could give each party a stronger starting point, he noted.

For Lin, improving onboarding is not just about speed. Families and advisers also benefit from knowing clearly and consistently what documentation and evidence is expected.

“Families are generally willing to accept a more rigorous process in exchange for the credibility, provided the process itself is efficient, transparent and predictable.”

“(This is) so that applications go in complete the first time, rather than going through multiple rounds of queries,” he added.

Ultimately, predictability and speed are two key factors clients consider when choosing a wealth hub.

“Large families always ask for discretion and speed,” he said. “This gets them speed without lowering the bar,” said Low.