Strategy
UBS Wealth Management To Spend Millions On Fintech This Year, Says COO

UBS WM is the latest firm to invest into financial technology to reach out to its client base.
UBS
Wealth Management’s chief operating officer has said the firm
will spend hundreds of millions of Swiss francs this year on
digital technology and artificial intelligence, according to
UAE-based The National.
Dirk Klee, COO, also told the newswire that the investment into
financial technology is a bid to improve customer relations and
attract new clients.
"We're using digital not just to enhance customer experience but
also to streamline and improve the operational efficiency of the
bank," said Geneva-based Klee. "We are still cumbersome in many
processes in banking which will be replaced by smart technology
and automation. So we're investing heavily into that."
Earlier this month,
as reported by this publication, Deutsche Bank’s chief
executive John Cryan said humans will lose jobs to robots. This
bid by UBS WM to increase technological development could be the
start of the robot replacement.
According to The National, Klee said that he did not
expect a huge decrease of jobs in UBS's wealth management
division. He added that while a number of administrative
positions would eventually go they were likely to be replaced by
more wealth management officers.
"We can see that onsite visits of clients globally are reducing
because a lot of clients deal with us on the phone, online," Klee
said.
Klee added: "More and more we are going towards remote access
because a lot of clients video-conference us or telephone us and
that has an impact on real estate and it also means that we need
fewer and fewer physical spaces and we can concentrate things
more in hubs."
As time goes on it is expected that more firms like UBS WM will
start to drastically invest in fintech in a bid to reach out
to the next generation of wealth holders, who are looking to use
technology to manage their wealth affairs.