The wealth management firm, having recently marked Asia as a big revenue and assets driver, has voiced its optimism about the region's importance at a conference in Singapore.

One of the co-heads of UBS’s wealth business, recently transferred to Asia in a significant acknowledgement of the region’s importance to the bank's earnings, has reiterated the Swiss bank’s confidence in APAC as a growth engine.

Iqbal Khan, co-president UBS Global Wealth Management and president of UBS Asia Pacific, spoke last week at the  Bretton Woods Committee Future of Finance Forum 2024 in Singapore, hosted by UBS. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods financial and trade framework hammered out by the Allied powers in 1944.

“We see strong growth opportunities in the region based on demographics and the rapid creation of wealth. Our leadership in wealth management – where we are privileged to serve two out of three billionaires in Asia Pacific and half of APAC family offices – provides us with unparalleled insights into the unique needs of our clients,” Khan said. 

The bank said that since it first published its Global Wealth Report in 2008, wealth has grown faster in the Asia-Pacific region than any comparable part of the world, rising by almost 177 per cent. APAC is home to more than a quarter of the world’s millionaires. In its second-quarter financial results, UBS said that Asia-Pacific wealth management business contributed one-third of its net new assets globally.

At the end of May, UBS unveiled its new management set-up. Khan became president of UBS Asia-Pacific from 1 September. (This publication mused about the changes here.)

Having spent more than a year digesting Credit Suisse – bought in the shotgun wedding of March 2023 – UBS will want to carry forward its momentum with the added Credit Suisse assets (it had a significant Asia business).

Last week’s annual Future of Finance Forum gathered together policymakers, regulators, industry experts, and practitioners to discuss emerging topics, trends, and technologies in financial services.