ANIL WADHWANI
ANIL WADHWANI prudential.co

Prudential's chief executive said mainland China's new tax on offshore insurance returns will not slow the group's Hong Kong sales to mainland Chinese customers, pushing back on investor fears that wiped billions off insurer stocks this month.

Anil Wadhwani made the comments in an interview published Thursday by CNBC, addressing the offshore wealth tax crackdown that has rattled Hong Kong's insurance sector since early August. Wadhwani, the first Prudential group CEO based in Hong Kong in the insurer's 175-year history, said mainland demand for the company's Hong Kong products remains intact.

Prudential shares listed in Hong Kong (2378.HK) fell more than 5% on Aug. 6, a day after its London-listed stock dropped as much as 13%, after Chinese outlet Caixin reported that tax authorities in Beijing and Hangzhou had begun applying a 20% personal income tax to returns from Hong Kong insurance policies, including dividend payouts and interest on prepaid premiums. AIA, HSBC, Standard Chartered and FWD Group also slid, and the Hang Seng Finance Index dropped 1.5%.

Hong Kong's Insurance Authority told Reuters at the time that mainland residents had always been required to declare and pay tax on offshore investment income, without saying whether enforcement itself had changed — a distinction the regulator has not since clarified.

Wadhwani's comments echo AIA. The insurer's Hong Kong regional chief executive, Jacky Chan Wing-shing, told reporters last week that new business from mainland visitors kept growing through the first half of the year despite the tax news, and that AIA had observed no impact.

Hong Kong was Prudential's largest profit contributor in 2025, with new business profit there up 12%, driven by both domestic and mainland Chinese customers, the company reported in March. Prudential is due to report its next results in the coming months, its first chance to show in hard numbers whether mainland visitor volumes have actually moved since the tax news broke.