Bankable Assets

Colour and numbers go hand in hand with Franck Muller’s Asia-exclusive Master Banker.

Living in Singapore, one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, we’re constantly connected to what’s happening elsewhere on the globe. We’re frequently in touch with friends, family and co-workers who are miles away.

Especially during the pandemic, some of us have already gotten the hang of managing entire teams in spite of multiple time differences, walking away with two or three time zones permanently ingrained in our muscle memory. Singapore is eight hours ahead of London, 12 hours ahead of New York, one hour behind Tokyo, and in the same time zone as Shanghai. But even if one hadn’t memorised all that, there’s no need to worry. Like everything else today, most of that information is readily available with the tap of a few buttons. However, this feature was a rarity in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Money never sleeps

During that time, financiers monitoring the world’s major stock exchanges needed a wall of clocks, one for each city that mattered to their bottom line. World timers offering all 24 time zones already existed then of course, as did the dual time complications, but these watches were designed primarily for travellers.