UBS Opens Another Campus In Asia Amid Talent Management Drive

Tom Burroughes

18 April 2017

late last week officially opened its Beijing campus the UBS University, a sign of how such banks are seeking to drive talent management in mainland China and other parts of the Asia region.

The Beijing facility adds to the UBS campuses operating in Hong Kong and Singapore.

"The growth momentum across all of our businesses in China, including the investment bank and wealth and asset management, remains undiminished. We have announced that we planned to double our headcount in China by 2020. We expect the campus in Beijing to become a rich source of financial talent that will help meet the spiraling demand as our businesses continue to grow," Eugene Qian, chairman of UBS China Strategy Board, said in a statement.

The campus will primarily provide UBS employees with a range of talent, professional development and leadership programmes as well as and divisional training. The facility can also host external educational events.

A number of financial organisations, such as UBS and its peers, have developed programmes for the graduate and post-graduate level, seeking to keep pace with demand for skills seen as strong in Asia. (To view a summary of such education schemes around the world, click here.) Last July, UBS opened the Shanghai campus of the UBS Business University in Lujiazui, the city's financial district.
UBS rival Credit Suisse 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.