UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, is trimming its Asia-Pacific headcount by between 30 and 35 jobs as the bank seeks wide-scale cost-cuts amid shrinking revenues.

UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, is trimming its Asia-Pacific headcount by between 30 and 35 jobs as the bank seeks widescale cost cuts amid shrinking revenues, WealthBriefingAsia has learned.

The Asia-Pacific workforce will likely be the least affected of all the bank's regional hubs, with only about 0.5 per cent of the 6,500 staff in the region set to lose their jobs.

The cuts will be made across business lines from human resources, to IT, legal and compliance, and investment banking, said a source close to UBS. “It’s fairly egalitarian,” he said. “Almost every division is being trimmed down as part of the ongoing global review.”

The bank is in a better position than many. Although Asia-Pacific, where the population of millionaires now exceeds that in Europe, is still a major focus, a difficult trading environment and the ongoing fallout from the European debt crisis has forced many players to retrench substantially.

HSBC is cutting 3,000 jobs, equating to 13 per cent of its workforce, from its Hong Kong office, while Bank of America plans to cut a fifth of its Asia-Pacific workforce by the end of this quarter. Nomura and Royal Bank of Scotland have both laid plans to cut back on their Asia-Pacific resources. 

Earlier this week Zurich-based UBS announced lacklustre fourth quarter results for 2011. Net profit had slumped by over three-quarters and its investment bank posted a pre-tax loss. It said it had cut headcount by 1,101 in the fourth quarter.

Last September chief executive Oswald Grübel resigned following a $2.3 billion rogue trading scandal at the firm's London-based investment bank. His successor Sergio Ermotti subsequently announced a series of radical cost-cutting measures which will pare back its flagging investment bank and build up its private banking operations.

UBS declined to comment.