Finexis Advisory (HK) Limited is reshaping a business historically built around insurance brokerage and institutional referrals. Following its integration into Ascend Asia, the firm is recruiting advisers, investing in technology and seeking to build a larger independent advisory platform in Hong Kong.
Terry Koon, General Manager of Finexis Hong Kong, sees the opportunity against a changing client backdrop. As High-net-worth (HNW) and Ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families become more internationally dispersed, he says the conversation is moving from straightforward asset accumulation towards preservation, succession and long-term planning.
Key Takeaways
- Finexis Hong Kong is changing its distribution model: The business is moving beyond its traditional reliance on referrals from financial institutions towards a larger adviser-led platform.
- Adviser recruitment is accelerating: Koon says 30 to 40 financial advisers have joined the Hong Kong business in 2026, with further expansion planned.
- Client priorities are shifting: Wealth preservation and intergenerational transfer are becoming more prominent alongside investment returns.
- Internationally-minded families are looking for complex advice : Different investment priorities, asset class needs, as well as intergenerational priorities increasingly require coordination between insurance, legal, trust and tax specialists.
- Technology is being built around the adviser: Finexis is developing systems to consolidate policies across insurers and use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for training, product comparison and servicing, although Koon still believes human judgement will take precedence over technology.
Building a Larger Adviser Business
Finexis Hong Kong was established in 2010, five years after the Singapore business. Its traditional model centred on insurance brokerage, working with external financial institutions and serving clients referred by those partners.
“We were mainly serving the middle-to-higher end of the market through financial institution partners,” Koon says, with the firm arranging insurance solutions registered in different markets including Hong Kong, Singapore and Bermuda.
The strategy has shifted since Finexis and its affiliates joined Ascend Asia, the financial advisory platform established with the backing of global investment firm KKR.
Koon now wants the Hong Kong business to build a larger direct adviser base.
“Our longer-term objective is to establish an independent financial advisory platform in Hong Kong,” he says. “The Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) model has existed here for many years, but we want to develop professional advisers serving clients in Hong Kong and from the surrounding region.”
Koon says around 30 to 40 financial advisers have joined Finexis Hong Kong during 2026, with the team expected to expand further.
The growth comes as regulatory expectations on insurance intermediaries have increased. Koon argues that larger platforms can provide advisers with training, systems and operational support that become harder to replicate individually.
“The requirements on the industry are getting higher,” he says. “Through training, the platform and the support behind it, we want to develop licensed advisers who can serve different types of clients.”
Finexis Hong Kong remains a licensed insurance broker, and Koon highlighted the firm’s investment in its own compliance and regulation capabilities. The development of its operational model therefore will see Finxeis working with other professional services firms when clients need additional services .
“We want to operate on an open-platform basis and work with different partners and service providers,” he says.
Those relationships can include lawyers, trust companies and other specialists involved in tax, succession and estate planning.
From Accumulating Wealth to Preserving It
The rationale for that broader network lies partly in the changing circumstances of Finexis’ client base.
Koon says that when he entered the industry around 25 years ago, many affluent clients in the market were still firmly in wealth-creation mode.
“A lot of the focus was on asset accumulation,” he says. “How do I invest? How do I generate returns? How do I increase my wealth?”
Today, a larger share of those clients has already accumulated significant assets. Their concerns are therefore changing.
“In the past, people might have been looking for returns or asking where the good investment opportunities were,” Koon says. “Now they pay much more attention to the security of their assets.”
He sees the Covid-19 pandemic as one factor that accelerated discussion around succession, as it prompted families to consider how they would manage unexpected disruptions and ensure continuity of their wealth and businesses.
For some clients, the question has consequently moved from how to create wealth towards how to preserve it and eventually pass it on.
“What we have seen over the past few years is that many wealthy clients are thinking about how to preserve their assets and how to transfer them to the next generation, or even the generation after that,” he says.
Insurance can play a role in protection, liquidity and succession, but Koon says a broader package of advice and services are required today.
“Insurance can provide a very good solution for one part of a client’s needs,” he says. “But when you look at the overall asset planning , there are other things that need to fit around it.”
That is particularly relevant to Finexis because its client base is maturing in its needs.
The trend reflects a broader shift among affluent families, whose members are increasingly spread across different jurisdictions. Parents may remain in their home markets while children study, work and settle overseas. Different members of the same family can hold different passports, residency statuses and tax obligations.
“You can have multiple identities within a single family,” Koon says. “Some family members may already be living or working overseas.”
That can introduce legal, tax and succession considerations across several jurisdictions, increasing the need for specialist advice and coordination.
Insurance products are also adapting. Koon points to policies that may allow changes to policyholders or insured persons, subject to individual product terms, giving families greater flexibility as circumstances change across generations.
For Finexis, the result is not a move away from insurance. It is an attempt to place insurance within a wider discussion about family needs and how those needs evolve with an individual family.
Key Priorities
For Koon, the next 12 to 24 months are principally about people and the infrastructure required to support them.
Recruitment comes first. Finexis Hong Kong is looking at experienced advisers, but also professionals from banking, accounting, legal and compliance backgrounds who could move into financial advisory.
Koon says that reflects a change in what the role requires.
“In the past, if you were selling insurance, knowing the insurance products might have been enough,” he says. “But client requirements are very different now.”
Product knowledge remains necessary. What Koon values more, however, is an adviser’s ability to maintain the relationship as the client base broadens from an individual or couple to several members of the same family.
“Hard skills are important, but what is more important is to become a trusted adviser to the family as a whole,” he says. “When relationships extend across generations, you gain a deeper understanding of the family’s objectives and can help navigate increasingly complex decisions over the long term.”
The second priority is technology.
Finexis wants systems capable of consolidating a client’s policies across different insurers rather than forcing advisers and clients to view each relationship separately. The same infrastructure is intended to help advisers track service requirements while supporting internal functions such as policy administration, incentives and career progression.
The need becomes more pressing as headcount grows. Systems designed for a business with several dozen advisers may not work as effectively with more than 100.
Finexis is also incorporating AI into the platform. Vendors have been shortlisted and development is under way.
For Koon, recruitment and technology are therefore part of the same exercise: adding advisers expands distribution, but the systems behind them have to be scaled at the same time.
Into the Future
Koon expects regulation, client behaviour and AI to shape the market over the next several years.
He sees tighter regulation as potentially beneficial if it encourages the insurance brokerage industry to rely more on licensed advisers.
“We would like to see more firms move towards the IFA model and raise the professionalism of the advisory industry,” he says.
In the short-term, Koon says some clients have become more cautious amid uncertainty around tax treatment, overseas investments and changing rules affecting cross-border assets. After a strong 2025 for Hong Kong insurance sales, he has seen some clients adopt a wait-and-see approach during 2026.
He is reluctant to predict how policy will develop and argues that clients should avoid basing long-term family decisions on guesses about what regulators may do next.
“There will always be new policies,” he says. “If you already have genuine asset allocation or family protection needs, you have to look at your own circumstances and make decisions based on what is known today.”
AI presents a different type of change. Finexis is developing an AI assistant that could help newer advisers practise client conversations, respond to objections and navigate product questions. It also wants to use the technology for product comparison, particularly where several insurers offer competing solutions to the same client need.
Other applications include policy servicing and administrative processes.
Koon believes such tools can reduce manual work and give advisers faster access to information, but he draws a line between analysis and advice.
“Financial planning involves a lot of uncertainty and emotion,” he says. “AI can analyse information and provide different options, but it cannot make the decision for the client.”
For him, technology is therefore an assistant rather than an alternative to the adviser.
“AI can assist our advisers,” Koon says. “We do not see it replacing them.”
Getting Personal with Terry Koon
Koon has spent roughly 25 years in financial services, largely within Hong Kong’s insurance and independent financial advisory market.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, he studied finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before beginning his career on the front line, finding and serving clients himself. He later built a sales team before moving into management.
“I started from the front line, finding clients myself, then gradually built a team,” he says. “After that, I moved more into the back end and started managing the business.”
His career has since taken him across both sides of insurance distribution. Koon spent more than a decade with IFA businesses and later worked for insurers including China Life and AIA, managing broker channels.
He joined Finexis Hong Kong in March 2026. For Koon, the move represented something of a return to his roots.
Having begun his career in independent advice, he says the current regulatory focus on raising standards within insurance brokerage contributed to his decision to return to the IFA side and help build the Finexis platform.
Outside work, sport remains a significant part of family life.
Koon played basketball for the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Both of his children later took up squash, starting with his 14-year-old daughter. His 10-year-old son now trains regularly and competes internationally, recently winning an under-11 tournament in Taiwan.
One of Koon’s own most memorable sporting experiences came in 2008 while he was working at Zurich International Life.
He entered Hong Kong’s White Collar Boxing event, which brought together professionals from insurers, banks, private banks and hedge funds for months of training before a charity fight night.
After six to seven months and several rounds of selection, Koon was among 12 participants who made the final event in Happy Valley, and the only Hong Kong participant in the group.
The experience combined two parts of his life that rarely overlapped: financial services and competitive sport.
“It brought together the industry, sport and clients all in one experience,” he says. “Some of the brokers who were there that night still talk to me about it today.”
He has no plans to return to the ring. Away from work and his children’s squash tournaments, his preferred routine is simpler: staying home, listening to music and having a glass of whisky.