Strategy
UBS Ramps Up Talent Management Push In Asia, Opens New Campus In Shanghai
The world's largest wealth management house has added to its footprint of training campuses across Asia.
UBS has officially opened
the Shanghai campus of the UBS Business University in Lujiazui,
the city's financial district. It is the Swiss
bank's third training facility in Asia. A fourth campus is
planned for Beijing early next year.
The UBS Business University also has campuses in Singapore and
Hong Kong.
The opening of the facility comes at a time when talent
management and training remain key issues for wealth managers in
regions such as Asia, where rapid growth in the number of high
net worth individuals puts pressure on firms to grow talent
in-house rather than rely on poaching advisors from rivals. UBS
rival Credit Suisse, for example, said in 2015 that there are an
estimated 7 million millionaires in the Asia region. On the
assumption that a banker can on average handle 35 clients, that
would translate into a need to have 200,000 private bankers. But
at the moment there are only around 10,000 such people.
(To see a list of courses in wealth management worldwide, click here. We also welcome data from readers.)
There is now a significant amount of financial sector
training and development in Asia and worldwide, with institutions
such as the National University of Singapore, for example,
prominent in Asia.
The UBS Business University seeks to enhance leadership and
management capabilities, professional skills and expertise in
compliance and risk management. In Shanghai, training programmes
target all levels of China talent and include the flagship "China
Talent" programme and mentoring opportunities through a
systematic exchange programme of both outbound and inbound
talent.
"The opening of a campus in Shanghai reinforces our commitment to
China and will help support our expansion plans in the country.
We plan to double headcount in China by 2020, so demand for
high-quality development and training programmes can be expected
to grow substantially," said Eugene Qian, UBS Group China country
head and president.
