The Swiss bank is taking a cue from Amazon by launching another online platform. The new venture centers on Swiss retail banking products.
UBS is unveiling Key 4, a digital mortgage platform to«offer clients a key to their own home,» the Swiss bank said at the product launch on Friday. The platform offers home equity loans financed by the Zurich-based bank as well as selected third-party investors.
It may be Switzerland's largest bank, but UBS isn't the market leader in online mortgage broking: that spot is held by Moneypark, a Swiss fintech backed by insurer Helvetia. UBS' domestic boss Axel Lehmann (pictured below) wants to change that. «With Key 4, we want to be the market leader in platform business and in brokering mortgages, with a volume of 5 billion to 10 billion Swiss francs in the mid-term.»
Taming Competition
The Swiss bank mainly wants to win a chunk of younger, digital-savvy new clients: the volume of Switzerland's mortgage market is roughly 130 billion francs annually, of which 6.5 billion are concluded digitally. UBS' app lets clients get quotes via their smartphones or mobile devices, within minutes. Binding offers require a phone call.
Besides UBS, institutional investors who view mortgages as investments are behind the offering. These investors have grabbed considerable new money from banks in recent years – UBS hopes to domesticate them to partners through the platform. It is open to other banks, including archrival Credit Suisse, UBS' Martha Boeckenfeld (pictured below) said.
Atrium's Billions in Volume
UBS launched Atrium, another mortgage platform, designed for yield-bearing real estate, on the same principles as Key 4. Atrium has brokered 1.6 billion francs in mortgage volume between borrowers and investors since its launch four years ago.
Key 4 is launching with «a handful» of creditors. Boeckenfeld, who is part of UBS Switzerland's top management, wants to expand the bank's platform economy with further, undisclosed projects in planning. Atrium and Key 4 are the basis for an ecosystem – a buzzword of digital banking.
