Raffles Family Office Courts Asia's Stablecoin Billionaires — and Rwanda

By Grace Kim

Raffles Family Office launched Revo in 2022, Asia's first digital assets-focused multi-family office — and in February it secured licenses from Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission to manage digital asset portfolios for professional clients alongside traditional investments.

The bet is simple: Asia's rich are getting younger, richer and more likely to hold their fortunes on a blockchain. "What if somebody comes with $100 million of stablecoin? You can't take them to a local bank," Chi-Man Kwan, founder and CEO of the Singapore and Hong Kong-headquartered RFO, told Fortune.

Who are the stablecoin billionaires?

Asia's young, self-made billionaires are a decade younger than their American and European peers. Many built their wealth in tech and crypto, and they carry larger risk appetites than the "old money" rich.

Younger billionaires store wealth on the blockchain through "newer currencies" like Bitcoin and Ethereum. "Even if their assets are U.S.-denominated, it's going to be in stablecoins," Kwan said. Most traditional-finance institutions don't accommodate these digital currencies.

He sees the shift accelerating. "Ten years from now, people may transact mostly in stablecoins," Kwan said. "Are wealth managers or family offices like us ready?"

The demand is measurable. A 2026 survey by fund administration provider Ocorian found 86% of family-office principals and senior executives now include crypto in their investment strategies. Yet, as Wealth Briefing Asia reports, regulatory and reporting challenges often stop family offices from fully embracing crypto assets.

Why China flipped the wealth map 'upside down'

Greater China is minting billionaires faster than anywhere else. According to the 2026 Hurun Global Rich List, 1,110 of the world's 4,020 billionaires now hail from China — the largest billionaire population of any country. The U.S. comes second with 1,000.

Kwan, who served Chinese clients at Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas, watched that wealth take shape by the early 2010s. "There were many Chinese entrepreneurs who were turning private companies public, and becoming billionaires almost overnight," he recalled. "They turned Hong Kong's wealth management sector upside down."

Serving them demanded new methods. "It's easy to speak to someone in their 50s or 60s about legacy planning, because they're generally married, with children of a certain age," Kwan explained. "But if you talk to a billionaire who is 35, they may not even be married yet, so how you cater to them is very different."

What's RFO doing in Kigali?

RFO now serves high-net-worth individuals across six Asian cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Bangkok.

The expansion tracks global wealth flows. Boston Consulting Group reports global offshore financial wealth jumped 8.4% to $15.7 trillion in 2025.

But RFO's footprint has stretched somewhere unexpected: Kigali, Rwanda's capital. In March, RFO co-hosted the inaugural Rwanda Family Office Symposium with the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the Kigali International Financial Center.

Last month, Kwan appointed former Rwandan Minister of State for Infrastructure Jean de Dieu Uwihanganye as RFO's principal of emerging markets and business development, tasked with driving investment flows between Asia and Africa. On Oct. 22, RFO signed a strategic capital mobilization agreement with the RDB to, as the company put it, "expand private sector participation in Rwanda."

Kwan anchors the Africa push in demographics: by 2050, potentially a quarter of the world's people will be African. "I wouldn't be surprised if they someday overtake Asia as the fastest-growing continent in the world," he said. "They'll be the ones with the highest earning — and spending — power."

RFO's play, in one line: digitize the portfolio for 35-year-old crypto billionaires today, and position for Africa's consumer boom tomorrow.