While regulators in the US fret that the pace of growth in the exchange traded fund market may be too explosive, their counterparts in Asia along with asset managers and distributors sweat over what more can be done to raise investor interest.
As US ETF assets under management passed the $3tn mark this summer, AUM in the Asia-Pacific industry just managed to creep over $350bn.
Between 2015 and 2016, the US market grew by 20 per cent, while the Asian market increased by just 10 per cent. There are two ways to look at the relatively modest size of the Asian ETF market compared with both the US and Europe — which is twice as big as Asia, with $716bn in ETF assets — say analysts.