UBS brings its affluent offering My Way to two further countries. There could however be a road bump on the way to further expansion in Europe.
The Swiss bank is currently expanding its private client offering My Way to Italy and Germany, as the bank confirmed to finews.com Monday. This follows the Swiss launch of the product in early 2020.
The wealth management product enables clients with a minimum of 250,000 Swiss francs ($271,000), to put together a portfolio with their advisor. Just as with Netflix, users can create a «playlist» with their own investment strategies.
Ambitious Goal
In the past, UBS CEO Ralph Hamers has said that the bank needs to become more like the movie streaming service. In both countries, customer response has been positive and interest is high, according to the bank.
Last year the lender set itself the ambitious goal of bringing on at least 30 billion francs worth of My Way mandates within the year.
U.S.'s Super-Rich
In the same year, the bank also decided to serve clients with assets in the range of $500,000 to $5 million in a more standardized manner. These are the clients that the bank is targeting with My Way. In the U.S. where until now UBS has been focused on capturing the U.S.'s super-rich, the Swiss bank also has plans to go after this client segment.
UBS, which specializes in servicing super-rich private clients abroad, increased the volume of funds held in wealth management mandates from $1.5 billion to $5.1 billion in the first nine months of the year. This includes money booked from clients in Europe and Asia.
Billion-Dollar Booking Platform
People familiar with the bank report that further expansion of My Way in Europe depends on the respective IT setup. They point out that Germany and Italy have already migrated to the relatively new and billion-dollar booking platform that UBS operates from Switzerland.
