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WRISE Prestige records over300% revenue growth in HK since end-2024, expands to more than 400 IWCs and advances a new professional standard combining human expertise, independence and AI

• Assets under management increased by 927%, revenue grew by 301% and the number of clients increased by 382% compared with the end of 2024.
• WRISE Prestige’s network has expanded to more than 400 Independent Wealth Consultants (IWCs) in Hong Kong.
• The broader WRISE ecosystem has added capabilities spanning family office and wealth planning, corporate advisory, trust and legacy planning, structured products, international insurance and AI labs, while the IWC proposition evolves from Independent Wealth Consultant to Intelligent Wealth Consultant.

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 September 2026 – WRISE Prestige, a core business of WRISE Group serving affluent and high-net-worth clients through a network of wealth consultants, is set to celebrate its second anniversary in Hong Kong on 16 September, marking two years of rapid growth and the next chapter in its approach to wealth advisory.

Since the end of 2024, WRISE Prestige in Hong Kong has recorded 927% growth in assets under management (AUM), 301% growth in revenue and a 382% increase in the number of clients. Its Hong Kong network has also grown to more than 400 IWCs, reflecting rising demand for independent, people-led advice and broader access to integrated wealth solutions.

Over the past two years, WRISE Prestige has broadened its role within the WRISE ecosystem, connecting clients with capabilities across different aspects of wealth and advisory. These include WRISE Capital for corporate finance and advisory services, WRISE Private for family office solutions and sophisticated wealth planning, and WRISE Master Trust for wealth structuring and legacy planning.

WRISE Prestige has broadened its solution capabilities in parallel, expanding its insurance spectrum from local offerings to Bermuda solutions and connecting clients with investment, banking, protection, trust and corporate advisory resources.

Client demand has become increasingly diverse, spanning liquidity, income, diversification, downside management, succession and cross-jurisdictional wealth planning. Structured products may be considered as part of client solutions where suitable, depending on risk tolerance and circumstances, illustrating the need for tailored risk-return outcomes rather than one-size-fits-all distribution.

The Group’s expanding regional footprint, including presences in Taipei, Shenzhen, Changsha, Chengdu, Wuxi and Vancouver, further strengthens WRISE Prestige’s ability to connect clients and wealth consultants with capabilities across markets.

The evolution comes as Hong Kong’s wealth management industry reaches a new scale. According to the Securities and Futures Commission, AUM in Hong Kong’s private banking and private wealth management business rose 24% year-on-year to HK$12.9 trillion at the end of 2025.^[1]

As wealth grows, the needs behind it are becoming increasingly complex. Clients require holistic advice connecting investments and protection with family governance, business interests, succession and intergenerational planning. They increasingly value sound judgement, independence, expertise, trust and connectivity to a wider wealth ecosystem.

WRISE Prestige believes this is expanding the role of the wealth consultant. Building on the foundations of independent wealth advisory, the IWC approach puts the individual at the centre, considering their family, business, aspirations, risks and legacy, while drawing on a broader ecosystem to address wealth more holistically. Within this approach, independence refers to an open-architecture model that gives wealth consultants the flexibility to consider solutions from a broad range of financial institutions and providers, rather than being tied to a single institution or product. This approach does not imply the absence of conflicts of interest; any applicable conflicts are managed and disclosed in accordance with relevant policies and regulatory requirements.

IWC is now entering its next chapter, evolving from Independent Wealth Consultant to Intelligent Wealth Consultant. The new proposition builds on the open-architecture approach, trusted human relationships and professional expertise that have defined IWC, while bringing together the research, analytical and efficiency capabilities of AI.

Technology can enhance how wealth consultants analyse information, generate insights and serve clients, while human judgement, accountability and relationships remain at the heart of wealth advice. The goal is not to replace wealth consultants with AI, but to empower them with greater capabilities to support better-informed, more holistic wealth decisions.

As part of this evolution, WRISE Prestige is also strengthening the professional development pathway for its IWC network through QLC, a structured professional assessment covering four specialist areas relevant to the evolving needs of high-net-worth clients: Family Office, Trust, Offshore Insurance and Advanced Investment. IWCs who complete the QLC examination will earn the designation of IWC-Certified, establishing a common foundation of professional knowledge and standards across the network. Following certification, IWCs can continue to develop through pathways recognising both professional expertise and business performance.

Henry Shin, CEO of WRISE Prestige Hong Kong, said: “The wealth management industry has continuously evolved, from traditional institution-led models, to the emergence of independent financial advice, and now towards a new generation of wealth advisory. We believe the next stage of this evolution is intelligence.

Intelligent Wealth Consultant brings together the independence and trust that have always been fundamental to wealth advice with professional expertise, human judgement, and the insights and analytical capabilities of artificial intelligence. This is not about replacing the human element with technology, but about empowering our consultants with technology to deliver deeper insights and help clients make more informed and holistic wealth decisions.

At WRISE Prestige, we aspire to take this evolution one step further, not simply to witness the transformation of our industry, but to work alongside the industry in helping shape best practices for the next generation of wealth advisory.”

Looking ahead, WRISE Prestige expects wealth management to become more connected, technology-enabled and accessible. Its focus will remain on combining technology with human judgement and relationships, using technology to improve connectivity, insight and scalability while maintaining appropriate professional and regulatory standards.

Over the next two to three years, WRISE Prestige plans to expand its business-to-business capabilities and advance an Open-EAM architecture that connects IWCs, external asset manager partners and clients through the broader WRISE ecosystem. The architecture is intended to make it easier for wealth consultants and partners to access specialist capabilities across wealth management, banking, investments, protection, trust and corporate advisory services, supported by technology and the WRISE platform.

Through this approach, WRISE Prestige aims to create greater connectivity and scale for wealth consultants, more integrated choices for clients, and a stronger professional ecosystem for Hong Kong and the region. Its ambition for the next chapter is not only to grow its own platform, but also to contribute to the continued development of wealth advisory across the industry.

Hashtag: #WRISEGroup

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About WRISE

WRISE is one of Asia’s fastest-growing financial firms, driven by strategic acquisitions of companies with deep expertise and solid foundations. With a strong presence across key financial hubs including Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Changsha, Chengdu, Wuxi, Taipei and Vancouver, WRISE is home to one of the largest networks of independent qualified advisors. With over 600 employees located globally, supported by an ecosystem of over 200 financial intermediaries and access to eight booking centres worldwide, WRISE ensures unparalleled service and expertise in navigating today’s financial landscape.

WRISE Group of companies include WRISE Wealth Management (Singapore), WRISE Wealth Management (Hong Kong), WRISE Wealth Management Middle East Ltd (DIFC, regulated by the DFSA), WRISE Prestige (Hong Kong), WRISE Prestige Securities (Hong Kong), WRISE Prestige Asset Management (Hong Kong), WRISE Capital (Hong Kong), WRISE Financial Services (Hong Kong), and affiliates including WeWrise Services.

Rahul Chari, PhonePe’s founder and chief product and technology officer, said the company is concentrating on AI deployments that produce measurable gains in operating, product or revenue metrics rather than adding the technology indiscriminately across its platform.

Chari told the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai that the company’s approach starts with identifying operational bottlenecks where artificial intelligence can change outcomes. “Not everything that is an experience today gets genuinely better using AI,” he said. The emphasis, he added, is on a baseline shift in performance rather than the number of AI-labelled features. That approach is shaping investment across customer interactions, back-office workflows and engineering, while preserving conventional systems where automation offers little advantage.

The fintech processes close to 12 billion transactions a month and operates customer support with roughly 500 agents. Automation has increased the share of support cases handled without human intervention from about 90 per cent to 94 per cent, and PhonePe is targeting 96 per cent.

Chari said the remaining cases are harder because they often involve unusual circumstances, scattered information and the need for rapid responses. Large language models are being used to address those complex interactions, while human staff remain focused on cases that require judgement or escalation.

Fraud investigation is another area where automation has advanced. About 80 per cent of investigations can now be handled through automated systems, allowing specialist teams to concentrate on complicated incidents and new fraud patterns, according to the company’s account of its AI programme.

PhonePe is also extending artificial intelligence into consumer-facing services. It has been developing natural-language search that allows users to navigate the app, initiate tasks and reach relevant services using voice or text commands. The company is exploring broader conversational capabilities for personal finance, insurance and investment products.

Its search system, launched earlier this year using Microsoft Foundry, can interpret requests such as making a payment, recharging a FASTag or locating transaction information. PhonePe has said the interface is designed to reduce dependence on conventional menu navigation by directing users according to their stated intent.

Merchant products are another focus. PhonePe launched an AI-powered integration layer in May aimed at helping online businesses connect to its payment gateway through conversational instructions, reducing a process that can otherwise require developers to work through documentation and technical configuration.

The company followed in June with SmartPages, an AI-powered payment-page creator embedded in its payment gateway dashboard. Merchants can describe what they are selling in ordinary language, including vernacular languages, and the system generates product copy, selects relevant customer information fields and structures a mobile-oriented payment page.

PhonePe is considering further agentic functions for its business app, including answering merchant and customer queries and helping businesses create and distribute offers or coupons. The company has also examined tools that could connect commerce activity with services such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

Artificial intelligence is being incorporated throughout PhonePe’s software development process, including solution design, coding, code reviews, testing, deployment, troubleshooting and debugging. Internal tools include TraceMine for crash analysis, Lens for initial root-cause analysis using logs and deployment data, and KadAI for code orchestration and agent-based development.

Corporate functions are being brought into the same framework through an internal Agent Hub designed to let non-technology teams automate workflows. Legal, compliance, finance and human resources teams are among those using the platform.

PhonePe says the system was built for a regulated financial-services environment, with controls covering data access, leakage and localisation. Its architecture includes an in-house large language model router, open-source models hosted on company premises, and internal data and tools.

One target is the company’s new-product introduction process, where reviews involving compliance, privacy, legal, trust and safety can take about 30 days. PhonePe is exploring whether AI-enabled workflows can compress that process to less than a day.

Founded in 2019 by Jaylon Lim and Joshua Luah, both of whom cut their teeth working part-time at an events rental company, The Carnival Fair was built on a simple observation: Singapore’s events scene had genuine appetite for a specialist who took carnival experiences seriously, from properly maintained equipment to staff who know how to run a booth and hold a crowd.

That foundation has since grown into a catalogue spanning carnival classics such as ring toss and bouncy castle rental, themed booth setups with custom props and backdrops, and a tech-forward lineup including claw machine rental, racing simulators and VR/AR stations. Clients looking to rent carnival games for a single booth or an entire event footprint can now draw from one of the broadest catalogues in the local market, with carnival food rental options available to round out the experience for guests. The breadth was on full display at flagship events such as the City Harvest Church Christmas Carnival at Suntec City, which drew around 10,000 attendees across a multi-day operation, and the Biotronik “Carnival Around the World” celebration, which paired globally themed food stations with bespoke branding to mark a genuine company milestone.

Underpinning the growth is a price-match guarantee, ensuring clients who find a comparable like-for-like quote from another Singapore provider are never short-changed on price or quality.

Reaching 1,200 events reflects sustained demand from Singapore’s businesses, schools and families for carnival experiences done properly, and marks just the beginning as the company moves further into full event planning rather than rentals alone.

With demand continuing to grow across corporate, education and private segments, The Carnival Fair is expanding its interactive and technology-driven offerings, including holographic claw machines, racing simulators, VR/AR stations and interactive digital games, while deepening partnerships with venues and recurring corporate clients.

Hashtag: #TheCarnivalFair

https://www.thecarnivalfair.com.sg/
https://www.facebook.com/TheCarnivalFairSG/
https://www.instagram.com/thecarnivalfairsg/?hl=en

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About The Carnival Fair

The Carnival Fair is a Singapore-based carnival event and rental company offering bouncy castle rental, carnival games, inflatables, food stations, photo experiences and interactive tech installations for corporate, school and private events. Businesses and families can rent carnival games and equipment individually or as part of a full carnival package, backed by a price-match guarantee. The company has served more than 700 clients since 2019.

As AI cuts production costs and multiplies the output of small agency teams, a new model is emerging in Singapore: revenue-sharing, where the agency earns only when the client sells.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 14 September 2026 – For decades, the marketing agency business model has rested on one assumption: producing campaigns is expensive, so clients must pay fixed monthly retainers regardless of results. Artificial intelligence is dismantling that assumption from two directions at once — cutting what it costs an agency to operate, while multiplying what a small team can produce.

The savings start in places clients never see. Administrative work that once consumed billable hours — invoicing and quotations, client reporting, campaign documentation, scheduling and follow-ups — can now run largely on AI systems, stripping overhead out of every account an agency manages.

The bigger shift is in production itself. In video, AI now handles the foundation of the edit — assembling rough cuts, syncing footage, generating captions and preparing ad-ready variations — before a human editor applies the judgment, pacing and finishing that machines can’t. What once took an editor days takes hours. The same applies to design and ad creatives. The result: a small team’s production capacity multiplies while its cost per campaign falls.

That double effect — lower cost, higher capacity — changes what an agency can afford to offer. When servicing an account no longer carries heavy fixed costs, those economics can be passed on to the customer: instead of a large retainer that pays for activity, the agency can charge a minimal base fee and earn its real income as a share of the sales its campaigns generate.

Singapore agency touchmkt has built its business on this model, charging SME clients a low base retainer that roughly covers production, then earning 5–9% of the revenue attributed to its campaigns — tracked through conversion tools that tie each sale back to the ads that produced it.

“The economics simply didn’t work before,” said Charlie Tan, founder of touchmkt. “If every account carries thousands of dollars in production and admin costs, you have to charge for it whether the campaigns perform or not. When AI takes out the cost and multiplies the output, you can afford to be paid on outcomes. For the first time, the agency’s goals and the client’s goals are actually aligned — we only do well when they sell.”

The model does demand discipline: rigorous attribution, and the agency absorbing the risk of campaigns that underperform. But for small businesses long wary of paying retainers for activity rather than results, the direction is clear — AI hasn’t just changed how marketing is made; it’s beginning to change how it’s paid for.

Hashtag: #touchmkt #MarketingAgency #AI #Singapore #SME #DigitalMarketing

https://www.touchmkt.com
https://www.facebook.com/people/touchmktai/61589325994905/#
https://www.instagram.com/touchmkt.sg/

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Touchmarket LLP

touchmkt (TouchMarket LLP) is a Singapore-based growth agency for small and medium businesses, combining on-site videography and photography with AI-assisted content production and performance advertising. The agency builds websites, produces short-form video and branded social content, and manages Meta and Google ad campaigns with full conversion tracking — operating on a performance-based model in which its fees are tied to the sales revenue its campaigns generate. touchmkt works with clients across F&B and catering, education, beauty and skincare, renovation and home services, and professional services in Singapore. Learn more at touchmkt.com or contact [email protected].

By R Suryamurthy The 2026 New Delhi Declaration arrives at a revealing moment for BRICS: two decades after the grouping emerged as a shorthand for the rising economic weight of the Global South, it is no longer merely demanding a larger seat at the table of global governance, but is beginning to construct the institutional […]

The article BRICS is not building a new order, but a hedge against the old one appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

The revised Beijing Unmanned Aircraft Management Regulations, approved by the municipal legislature this month, designate the entire municipality as controlled airspace and prohibit individuals and organisations from keeping drones or key components unless they fall within specified exemptions. Transporting or carrying such equipment into Beijing will also be barred.

The rules mark a significant escalation from restrictions introduced on May 1, when Beijing prohibited drone sales and rentals, required real-name registration and made all outdoor flights subject to approval. Existing owners were previously allowed to retain registered aircraft, but that arrangement will end when the amended regulations take effect.

Authorities have opened several channels for residents to dispose of devices before the deadline. Owners may sell drones at government-approved buyback points, surrender them for recycling, send them outside Beijing by post or carry them out of the municipality themselves. Subsidies are available to individuals whose drones had completed the required police information verification.

For buybacks completed between September 12 and October 31, the subsidy is set at 30 per cent of the transaction price, capped at 3,000 yuan per drone. The rate falls to 15 per cent, with a 1,500-yuan ceiling, for transactions from November 1 to November 14. Scrapping payments are 200 yuan per drone before November and 100 yuan during the first two weeks of November, while eligible postal transfers outside Beijing are free.

The regulations retain exemptions for activities judged necessary for counter-terrorism, emergency rescue, major events, teaching, scientific research, industrial production, agriculture and certain sporting purposes. Such users must undergo security assessment and operate under designated safeguards, while authorised flights remain subject to national aviation requirements.

Beijing’s move follows the June 26 crash of a two-seat Sunward SA 60L Aurora light sport aircraft into Citic Tower, also known as China Zun, in the capital’s central business district. The aircraft struck the 528-metre tower shortly before 6pm after departing from an airfield roughly 50 kilometres east of central Beijing.

The pilot, the only person aboard, was killed and 13 people were injured. Chaoyang district authorities later said the aircraft had left its approved flying area during a solo flight and lost contact with the airport before hitting the skyscraper.

Investigators described the episode as a public-safety incident caused by personal factors involving the pilot. Authorities said he had suffered long-term insomnia and anxiety and that writings recovered during the investigation contained references to ending his life. The finding drew attention to how a light aircraft was able to enter tightly controlled airspace over the capital.

Citic Tower, headquarters of state-owned Citic Group, stands in Beijing’s Chaoyang district near the East Third Ring Road. The impact damaged the building’s glass facade, triggered an evacuation and scattered debris around the surrounding business area.

Beijing had already classified its full administrative territory as controlled airspace for unmanned aircraft. Under the May rules, outdoor drone flights required prior approval from air-traffic authorities, while sales, rentals and the establishment of new storage sites were restricted. Police also introduced information-verification requirements for existing owners, a process that ended on July 31.

The amended framework removes the general option for ordinary residents to keep registered drones inside the municipality. Once the November rules take effect, police will be authorised to inspect storage arrangements, confiscate unlawfully held equipment and impose penalties on individuals and organisations that breach the controls.

Some local branches of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange have urged lenders to encourage businesses to increase hedging, extending a campaign that has pushed corporate derivatives use to record levels. The guidance targets companies with sizeable foreign-currency receipts or payments as the yuan trades near three-year highs.

The push reflects Beijing’s preference for companies to manage exchange-rate risk through forwards, swaps and options. SAFE has repeatedly promoted what it calls an exchange-rate risk-neutral approach, arguing that companies should focus on their underlying business and use hedging tools to reduce the effect of currency movements on earnings.

Corporate hedging has risen sharply this year. SAFE said enterprises used foreign-exchange derivatives covering 35.3 per cent of their currency transactions in the first half of 2026, up 5.3 percentage points from the full-year level in 2025. The contracted value of derivatives used for exchange-rate risk management reached nearly $1.4 trillion, an increase of about 40 per cent from a year earlier.

The regulator has also broadened access to hedging services. About 130 major domestic and foreign-funded banks can provide foreign-exchange derivatives to companies, while a SAFE database shared with lenders covers about 290,000 foreign-trade enterprises. Authorities have encouraged banks to expand online dealing channels and improve credit and margin arrangements for smaller businesses.

The effort also seeks more balanced corporate behaviour. The latest local instructions add to earlier informal guidance from the central bank and SAFE asking some lenders to lift corporate hedging ratios. Such measures are part of a wider effort to prevent companies from building large unprotected positions after periods when many exporters assumed the yuan would remain weak or move gradually.

That behaviour became more costly as the currency strengthened. The yuan has appreciated this year against the dollar and was trading near a three-and-a-half-year high last week, while global currency markets have been unsettled by changing interest-rate expectations, higher energy prices and geopolitical tensions. Exporters receiving dollars can suffer valuation losses when the yuan rises unless they hedge future receipts.

Beijing has simultaneously tried to avoid an excessive or disorderly rise in the currency. The People’s Bank of China removed a 20 per cent foreign-exchange risk reserve requirement on forward dollar purchases from March 2, lowering the cost of buying dollars forward after a strong yuan rally. The move gave companies and banks more flexibility while signalling that policymakers wanted to discourage one-sided appreciation expectations.

SAFE data show that China’s foreign-exchange market remains supported by large trade and capital flows. Banks recorded a $271.2 billion surplus in foreign-exchange settlement and sales in the first half. The regulator said the ratio measuring companies’ willingness to convert foreign-currency earnings into yuan stood at 65 per cent, while the ratio reflecting demand to purchase foreign currency was 61 per cent.

Foreign-exchange reserves rose to $3.438 trillion at the end of August from $3.419 trillion a month earlier. The yuan gained 0.49 per cent against the dollar during August, while the dollar weakened against a basket of major currencies, contributing to valuation changes in China’s reserve holdings.

Officials have stressed that greater hedging is intended to strengthen corporate resilience rather than direct the yuan toward a particular level. SAFE has said exchange rates are determined by market supply and demand and are difficult to predict, making risk management more important as two-way fluctuations become more common.

The regulator has reduced some transaction costs for smaller companies and encouraged financial institutions to simplify documentation for derivatives. Banks have been asked to use enterprise data to identify firms with foreign-currency exposure and offer products suited to their cash flows rather than promote speculative positions.