Global bank accounts broaden your toolkit to navigate uncertainty
[Sponsored Article]
Looking back at 2020, all of us had experienced such an unprecedented year with Covid-19, an unheard-of term until last January, sweeping across the world. World economy had frozen for months as governments around the world had no alternative but to enact lockdowns and strict social distancing measures.
The coronavirus crisis has sparked wealth owners to rethink about their wealth planning, as the pandemic has changed the market landscape entirely compared to a year ago. Some countries have been dealing with the pandemic better than others, and hence were able to stabilize and start to recover in the second half of last year. In terms of sectors, many in the so called “old economy”, such as airlines, hotels, restaurants, are affected while new opportunities prolifically emerges in areas like e-commerce, remote work access solutions, virtual meetings and home entertainment.
In the past, most people kept their assets in their home countries. It is natural because most of us tend to have home bias. Our home countries are where we are more familiar with and are therefore where we feel are safer to invest in. However, the crisis has highlighted the importance of further diversification.
The pandemic has been a stress test for governments on how promptly they respond to and how well they handle crises. Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, many governments have been better prepared for and well equipped themselves with various policy tools to tackle economic and financial shocks. Therefore, in the current crisis, more countries have been able to react pretty quickly and rolled out massive fiscal and monetary stimulus packages in order to prevent their economies from slipping into an even deeper recession.