Juerg Zeltner expects soon to reap the benefits from the biggest infrastructure project that UBS Wealth Management has undertaken in recent years. The banker has no plans to take part in the consolidation process within the industry.
Global wealth management at UBS is close to completing the largest infrastructure project the bank has ever undertaken, Juerg Zeltner told Switzerland’s «Handelszeitung» (in print edition only).
«We are working on the last chapter, the integration of Asia. Once this is completed, we will have 80 percent of all managed assets on a single platform,» said the head of wealth management at UBS.
«My Solution: Full Integration»
After the completion of the project, the marginal costs will be 20 percent lower than before, Zeltner added. IT was the biggest cost factor apart from the bank’s staff. The integration of the basic infrastructure generated an enormous advantage in terms of costs, Zeltner said.
Asked about UBS’ role in the consolidation of Swiss banking, Zeltner was distinctly cautious and said that the well-established niche players were finding solutions among themselves: «My solution would be a different one: full integration.»
Smaller Bank Solutions
Those banks that did well, didn’t strive for full integration and preferred solutions among the smaller companies. Zeltner added that if he were to spend money to grow, he’d prefer to conduct strategic acquisitions than to make risky restructurings.
The top executive mentioned the example of Brazil, where UBS recently acquired Consenso, the largest local multi-family-office. The acquisition helped UBS to achieve benefits of scale, he said, adding that the bank would be using the infrastructure of the office in future.
