Over the past two years Indonesia has stepped up a coordinated drive to lure foreign capital, specifically single family offices (SFOs). The moves combine tax and regulatory incentives, new special economic zones, and a more investor-friendly licensing environment. But is Indonesia competing with Singapore as the region’s wealth-management hub?
Indonesia is becoming a credible regional alternative for certain wealthy families and investments, but Singapore’s depth of ecosystem, legal certainty and private-bank network keep it the dominant hub for cross-border family office activity for the foreseeable future. In this article, we discuss the rise of Indonesia’s investment initiatives to build its financial landscape that might mirror its rich neighbour, Singapore.
Indonesia’s Recent Financial Initiatives
- Special economic zones and Nusantara incentives.
Indonesia has expanded investment incentives for Nusantara, the new capital, and for a range of SEZs including land rights, streamlined approvals and more flexible foreign worker rules aimed at speeding projects and attracting strategic foreign investors. These regulatory changes are meant to make on-the-ground investment simpler and cheaper.
Job-creation reforms and SEZ rules.
The 2020 Job Creation (Omnibus) Law and follow-on regulations have continued to create more permissive conditions for foreign investment in tech and manufacturing, and the government keeps updating guidance to ease licensing and tax treatment for targeted sectors. Recent government guides and investment-climate reviews document ongoing regulatory refinement to entice capital.
Family-office initiative and targeted tax concessions.
Indonesia has signalled interest in developing a family-office ecosystem offering tax concessions and proposing blended-finance mechanisms, private funding schemes and policy workstreams to encourage wealthy families and their advisors to keep more wealth and investment management onshore. While still nascent compared with Singapore, the initiative marks a policy intention to capture regional wealth flows. Given SIngapore’s maturing financial landscape and high costs, Indonesia may offer alternatives.
Sector play: manufacturing, natural resources and SEZ advantages.
Indonesia’s scale in population and domestic wealth, ongoing supply-chain re-shoring, and tax/operational incentives in industrial parks make it especially attractive for family offices focused on real assets, manufacturing, hospitality, agribusiness and infrastructure – sectors where proximity to assets matters more than offshore structuring.
How Singapore Currently Competes
Singapore remains the premier destination in Asia for SFOs and wealth management because of a unique combination of legal certainty, professional services, private banking, fund structures, a deep talent pool, and high livability. It also continues to refine its offerings – in 2025 MAS moved to speed up tax-incentive approvals and is working with banks to shorten private bank account setup times, a response designed to keep onboarding friction low while maintaining stronger controls after recent enforcement actions. The government and banks are actively balancing faster service with tighter compliance.
Large local banks and bank-backed multi-family platforms are scaling up to serve family clients efficiently, creating lower-cost entry points that further entrench Singapore’s role as a regional gateway for families that want both discretion and institutional depth.
Are they competing and who wins which families?
Yes, SIngapore and Indonesia are neighbours who compete for investments but not in the same segments.
- Direct competition: Indonesia will compete with Singapore for Indonesian ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families and family offices that prefer to base operations closer to domestic assets, investments and succession planning. Families with strong domestic business interests (property, manufacturing, plantations, infrastructure) may find Indonesia’s incentives and lower operating costs persuasive.
- Segmented market: Singapore will remain dominant for truly cross-border, multi-jurisdictional families that need global private banks, sophisticated fund administration, trust and fiduciary services, experienced family-office talent, international tax planning and dispute-resistant legal frameworks. Singapore’s ecosystem is especially attractive for families prioritising capital preservation, safe diversification, private equity and hedge-fund access.
- Talent and services migration: Some wealth-management roles such as onshore investment managers, asset managers, operations staff may either be hired locally in Indonesia or seconded from Singapore. But the higher-paid specialist talent such as family-office CIOs, trust lawyers, and fund accountants will still gravitate to Singapore unless Indonesia accelerates legal and professional-services development quickly.
Impact on Singapore’s attraction for foreign talent
- Modest near-term effect: Its combination of regulatory clarity, deep banks, global connectivity and living standards remains a strong pull. The reforms Singapore has implemented to accelerate approvals and clarify compliance show it’s actively defending its edge.
- Niche talent shift: Expect some specialised talent to be redistributed regionally. Firms in Singapore may open Indonesia desks or second staff. Indonesian-speaking investment professionals, real-asset specialists and operational staff could relocate to Jakarta/Bali/Nusantara or work in hybrid models. This will increase demand for regional experience in Singaporeans and foreigners based in the city-state.
- Market expansion rather than zero-sum: For many advisers, banks and service providers the growth of Indonesian family offices represents business expansion rather than a zero-sum loss for Singapore – more clients across a larger Asia-Pacific pool. Singapore-based service providers are already sponsoring platforms and partnerships aimed at families across Southeast Asia.
Singapore’s Potential Future Initiatives
Double down on speed + compliance clarity.
Keep approval times short while publishing clearer KYC/AML guidance for family offices and banks – Singapore has already moved in this direction.
Build talent pipelines focused on regional needs.
Encourage training and secondment programmes that give Singapore-based talent on-the-ground exposure to Indonesia’s markets.
Develop and sell cross-border advantages.
Offer bundled solutions, for example, VCCs, trustee, family governance, philanthropic vehicles, and even immigration and relocation all in one package; making it hard to replicate onshore and make Singapore the ‘safe seat’ for international holdings.
Partnerships, not walls.
Encourage Singapore firms to form alliances or operations in Indonesian SEZs, thus, capturing fees and advisory work while families keep operations closer to home.
Future Outlook on Indonesia’s Investment Landscape’s Growth
- Short term (1–2 years): Indonesia will win business from domestic UHNW families and those prioritising asset proximity or cost. Singapore retains the lion’s share of regionally mobile wealth and talent.
- Medium term (3–5 years): If Indonesia can rapidly strengthen legal certainty (contract enforcement, dispute resolution), deepen professional services (trustees, fund admins) and scale private banking partnerships, it could take a larger slice of the regional family-office market for families focusing on real assets and Southeast Asia. Otherwise, its role will be complementary where it becomes a place to operate assets while using Singapore as the international seat for capital markets and cross-border structuring.
Regional Winner in Investment Landscape
Indonesia is not trying to become a carbon copy of Singapore. It is leveraging scale, assets and lower costs to capture domestic and regional family wealth for onshore investment. This creates real competition for specific segments and will nudge talent flows regionally.
Singapore’s deep ecosystem, regulatory track record and accelerating service improvements mean the city-state remains the default hub for families wanting a sophisticated, cross-border wealth-management base. For Singapore, the smartest response is to treat Indonesia’s rise as both a challenge and an opportunity: maintain the legal and service edge, speed up onboarding where safe, and convert proximity into partnerships rather than confrontation.
