UBS Wealth is to raise its customer account fees from November 2018, for its North America region.
The moves comes as UBS Wealth Management Americas takes into account both liabilities, particularly mortgages and security based loans, and assets.
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The move will affect customers who have less than $2m in their household accounts.
At present, the Swiss banking giant waives fees for US customers who have at least $1m in combined household accounts, including resource management accounts and for managers who generate fees and commissions of $10,000 for the firm.
The current fee is in a range of $150-$500.
From December next year, the fee on RMAs and other accounts will increase to at least $175 and be a maximum of $500.
However, UBS added that they were several ways in which clients could still have a fee waiver.
This includes:
- A client adding $250,000 new money to an account.
- Obtaining a UBS Visa credit card called “Infinite Card”. But this involves a $495 annual charge.
- Using a UBS account aggregating tool. This could make the brokerage accounts and liabilities reach the $2m threshold.
The maximum fee per household relationship with be $500, up from $150, the source said.
Furthermore, fees on individual retirement accounts are increasing from $75 to $100.
“The changes will cause some grumblings, especially for teams that waive client fees and pay them out of their own production, but overall it’s not the worst change out there,” said one sourced briefed on the plan to AdvisorHub.
Customers are expected to be told about the changes this coming December. The story was first published on Thursday by industry website AdvisorHub.
