The wealth manager's Asian business is the first of its kind to push above SFr300 billion in client assets, the Swiss firm said.

Following its recent results announcement, UBS yesterday reported that assets under management in its Asian wealth arm stood at SFr311 billion ($312.7 billion) at the end of March, up from SFr292 billion at the end of last year.

The result means UBS is the first wealth manager in the Asia region to beat the SFr300 billion milestone. 

While a specific figure might not be particularly noteworthy in terms of how well a firm is doing, the sheer scale of UBS’s AuM figure will hearten executives at Western-based firms that have sometimes wondered if the Asian wealth market is proving more difficult to prosper in than originally hoped a decade ago. A raft of firms, such as ABN AMRO, Societe Generale, Barclays and ANZ have sold off private banking arms, unable to achieve sufficient critical mass of business. But UBS, with its global brand and sheer scale, seems to power on. It is building up teams in places such as Kowloon and investing in talent management in the region. Credit Suisse and Julius Baer, Switzerland’s second- and third-largest banks, respectively, also appear fully committed to Asia, making it a central part of expansion strategy. 

Edmund Koh, head of UBS Wealth Management, Asia-Pacific, certainly thinks the future is bright. “As the results show, Asia remains an area of growth for UBS.  We plan to consolidate our growth in the region by sharpening our focus on China, Japan, and Taiwan, as well as the regional wealth management hubs, Hong Kong and Singapore,” he said.

Over the last year, UBS opened a branch in Shanghai and another in Kowloon, its first branch in Hong Kong outside the central business district. The bank has also stressed its idea of going after a "mid-tier" of high net worth clients in Asia (see here).

Koh argues that UBS’s focus on how so many wealth-holders are also entrepreneurs has proven important, because the bank has the scale and expertise to help business creators and leaders. 

“We are also seeing the first handover of wealth in Asia - around 460 of the billionaires in the markets covered are expected to pass $2.1 trillion to the next generation in the next 20 years according to UBS/PwC Billionaires Report 2016,” he said.

About 13 per cent of UBS employees are in Asia, while 34 per cent are in the Americas, 35 per cent are in Switzerland, and 18 per cent in Europe, Middle East and Africa.