Switzerland's second-largest bank issued first quarter figures today, which it says show its restructuring is starting to bear fruit in areas such as wealth management.

Credit Suisse's wealth management operations pulled in net new money and logged a rise in pre-tax income, on an adjusted basis, in the first three months of this year, showing that moves to reposition operations are starting to gain ground, it said today.

The whole of the Zurich-listed banking group today reported a net loss, attributable to shareholders, of SFr302 million ($311 million) in the first three months of 2016, from SFr1.054 million in the same period last year.

When analysed for its "core" results - which focus on the ongoing part of the bank and strip out those parts being run off and disposed in its restructuring - Credit Suisse said total pre-tax income was SFr240 million, against SFr1.894 billion.

Total assets under management were SFr1.18 billion, down from SFr1.214 billion, the bank said in a statement. Net new assets were SFr10.5 billion, against the figure of SFr2.1 billion in the previous quarter and SFr14.9 billion a year ago.

Last year, the bank shook up its business lines, creating its Swiss universal bank (including wealth management in Switzerland); independent wealth management; Asia-Pacific; global markets; investment banking and capital markets, and its corporate resolution centre.

"The overall results for the group reflect challenges in the global economy that created unique pressures for the finance industry – January and February were very challenging months for international financial markets. However, these results also contain clear indications that our strategy is  gaining traction in our chosen markets in Asia-Pacific (APAC), international wealth management (IWM) and Switzerland. We are very encouraged by the strong underlying performance of our wealth management focused divisions," said Urs Rohner, chairman, and Tidjane Thiam, chief executive.

Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the Swiss universal bank, APAC and IWM divisions grew their adjusted pre-tax income in the first quarter by 39 per cent, 70 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively, the firm said.

In addition, the bank's wealth management-focused divisions delivered approximately SFr1 billion of adjusted pre-tax income.

"In particular, we saw profitable growth and inflows of quality new assets into these divisions during the quarter, with net new assets of SFr4.3 billion, SFr6.9 billion and SFr3.0  billion for APAC, IWM and the Swiss UB, respectively," Rohner and Thiam said.

At the Swiss UB, total assets under management were SFr236.1 billion, some SFr4.9 billion lower compared to the end of last year, driven by unfavourable market and foreign exchange-related movements, partially offset by net new assets of SFr0.7 billion.

Within IWM, AuM was SFr236.1 billion, a fall of SFr4.9 billion, affected by market movements and forex developments. Turning to Asia-Pacific private banking, Credit Suisse said AuM stood at SFr149.6 billion, holding steady from the end of 2015; unfavourable market developments were offset by net new assets of SFr4.3 billion during the period.

Turning to developments in hiring, Rohner and Thiam said more relationship managers have been hired, as planned. At the end of the quarter, the bank had a total of 630 relationship managers in APAC, an increase of 40 relationship managers during that quarter alone and an increase of 100 relationship managers year-on-year. In IWM, the bank also initiated the hiring of 90 new relationship managers in the first quarter, of which 40 joined and 50 are committed to join in 2016, with two-thirds focused on clients in emerging markets, it said.

Explaining the group's overall loss, the bank said: "On an adjusted basis, a pre-tax loss of SFr173 million was recorded, mainly reflecting a decrease in net revenues in global markets due to the difficult market environment as well as mark-to-market losses due to adverse market movements and, to a lesser extent, to the de-risking of our portfolio. The performance of our investment banking and capital markets (IBCM) division was also affected by adverse operating conditions."

Some of the costs incurred as shown in latest results are linked to de-risking and downsizing of the investment bank, amid moves to use less capital and reduce overall risk exposures of the firm.