UBS is to stop providing discounted services
to ultra high net worth (UHNW) clients.
The Swiss private banking giant had provided
severely discounted services to its UHNW clients to stem the mass
outflow of client assets during the financial crisis.
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In the past three years, UBS saw the
withdrawal of CHF195.1bn Swiss ($228.6bn) in UHNW clients’ funds
driven by $50bn of write downs in mortgage-linked investment
products and its wrangle with US authorities over the tax details
of 4,450 UBS customers who were US citizens.
Now UBS’s head of private banking, Juerg
Zeltner, has called for an end to the client discounts and wants
them to pay a full price for the bank’s services.
Closer co-operation between private
and investment banks
Zeltner also wants UBS’s wealth management
business to partner more closely with its investment bank to
provide UHNW clients with sophisticated investment banking
services.
UBS continued its strong recovery in the first
quarter of 2011 recording a 2% gain from its 2010 year-end
results in invested assets to CHF1.49trn ($1.7trn).
Net new money inflows amounted to
almost CHF15bn as of 31 March, a dramatic turnaround from the
CHF15bn outflows from the first quarter results a year ago.
