"Most of the hedge funds I know in Asia won't take American clients," said Faber.

Bank of Singapore, the private-banking arm of Oversea- Chinese Banking Corp., ranked strongest in the world for the last two years by Bloomberg Markets magazine, has turned away millions of dollars from Americans because it doesn't want to deal with the regulatory hassle, according to Chief Executive Officer Renato de Guzman. The bank had $32 billion under management as of the beginning of the year.

"It's too complex, too challenging," de Guzman, who at 61 has more than 35 years of banking experience, said in an interview in Singapore in March. "You probably should have a dedicated team to handle them or to understand what can be done or what cannot be done."

Rejecting Americans

At industry meetings he attends in Singapore, not accepting U.S. clients is "quite a prevailing sentiment," de Guzman said. There are 18 private banks operating in Singapore, including units run by UBS, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, he said.

"We have enough business in Asia, so we don't want to make our lives too difficult," de Guzman said.

Asia has the world's fastest-growing number of people with more than $1 million in investable assets, according to a report last year by Bank of America Corp. and Capgemini SA. Singapore is Asia's largest wealth-management center, with $512 billion in offshore assets in 2010, data compiled by the Boston Consulting Group show. Bank of America is the world's No. 1 wealth manager, with $1.9 trillion under management, followed by Morgan Stanley and UBS, with $1.6 trillion, according to Scorpio.

HSBC, Deutsche Bank

HSBC decided last July that it would no longer offer wealth-management services to Americans from locations outside their home country after tax authorities stepped up a probe of the London-based bank's U.S. clients.

Americans would be "better served" by private bankers in the U.S., Goh Kong Aik, a spokesman for the firm in Singapore, said in an e-mail. He declined to say whether those who already have private-banking accounts abroad will be allowed to remain customers, except that they would be helped through an undefined "transition process."