About 17 per cent of the wealth management assets at UBS are held in the Asia-Pacific region.

UBS intends to close smaller-value Credit Suisse accounts numbering in the low thousands at its Asia-Pacific wealth management arm, Bloomberg reported late last week, citing unnamed sources.

The Swiss bank is reviewing the accounts with a balance of around $2 million or less, the report said. Many of the accounts are in the Asian business hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong. Zurich-listed UBS oversees about $3.9 trillion in assets at its wealth division, 17 per cent of which is in Asia-Pacific, the report said. It added that UBS declined to comment.

UBS also declined to comment to this news service when asked about the matter on Friday.

The newswire report said that UBS wants to carve out parts of Credit Suisse that it doesn’t want after acquiring its rival for SFr3 billion ($3.4 billion) last year at the behest of the Swiss federal government. The “shotgun” wedding, which has left the Alpine state with one universal bank, has also prompted wealthy individuals and families to review their banking arrangements. 

This news service understands that it is not correct that the affected accounts are those transferred from Credit Suisse, because there hasn't been a transfer of accounts at this stage. However, it is usual banking practice for lenders to review accounts which fall below the minimum threshold. 

The report also shows how consolidation/state-brokered rescues of banks in difficulties have forced changes, leading people to seek alternative arrangements. A number of bankers around the world have told this news service that ultra-HNW clients, for example, are considering opening accounts with other lenders to diversify. The collapse of Credit Suisse, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature and First Republic revived worries about bank resilience.

UBS and Credit Suisse, along with Julius Baer – Switzerland’s third-largest bank – had made a point of pushing into Asia’s wealth sector in the past few years.

The report, if accurate, also highlights how the "mass-affluent"/lower HNW end of the market is arguably underserved in markets around the world, given the difficulties in providing scalable and profitable services to this cohort. A number of Swiss, European and other banks have told this news service of the about the difficulty of serving this market segment.

This news service understands that the number of affected accounts falls into the low thousands.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley financial conference last week, UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti said: “Too many clients' relationships are ‘mono-products’ and not necessarily priced in the right way. We need to either get those clients to do more business with us, and justify that kind of loss-leader position, or we need to then address and accept that maybe some assets will go somewhere else.”