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Tag: Banking

  • UBS Cuts 700 Jobs

    UBS Cuts 700 Jobs

    Swiss bankers are the first to go in the Swiss bank’s current round of cuts. UBS has started cutting jobs as part of its current round of cost-savings measures, with around 700 employees in Switzerland affected.

    Most of the cuts will be in the corporate center although 200 jobs will go in wealth management and UBS Switzerland. These are in addition to the roughly 125 jobs UBS was going to get rid of before the Covid-19 pandemic put those plans on ice

    UBS CEO Ralph Hamers announced a $1 billion cost-savings target during first-quarter results last month. UBS’s cuts are aimed at the jobs expected to become redundant as a result of its ongoing digitalization processes. finews.com reported on the plans in April. They are expected to be wide-ranging and take out 3,000 jobs in total.

    UBS has not confirmed the figure but it is realistic in view of the savings targets and the bank’s cost structures. It also announced that restructuring costs would total $300 million in the second quarter, most of which were in the scope of the cuts originally announced last year.

    According to Bloomberg, around a dozen managing directors as well as more junior bankers in the advisory and trading business were recently let go. In wealth management, about five managing directors and several executive directors were impacted. In the investment bank, most of those cuts were those responsible for wealth management clients.

    CEO Hamers said his current efforts are aimed at implementing and executing the transformation and digitalization strategy, which is expected to take about three years.

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  • UBS Quietly Advances Token Efforts With Clients

    UBS Quietly Advances Token Efforts With Clients

    UBS has been quietly running a tokenization trial with weighty institutional investors. The Swiss-based bank has been offering more than 100 institutional clients access to a pilot program to tokenize real assets. The project is operating on the Ethereum platform, the person said.

    This represents the next step in a push into putting assets on the blockchain and selling slices represented in coins. The project, being overseen by UBS investment banker Chetan Tolia, is looking at tokenizing traditional assets including debt, structured products, and physical gold.

    The Swiss wealth manager last week dipped its toes into cryptocurrencies, in a major concession to client demand. The tokenization program has quietly been running, separately out of UBS’ investment bank, for at least 12 months, the person said. UBS declined to comment.

    UBS has long held that it is interested in distributed ledger more than it is in cryptocurrencies themselves – which represent a threat to traditional banking. The Swiss bank transacts on we.trade, a blockchain-based trade finance platform, co-launched a so-called utility settlement coin with other banks, and is part of banking’s R3 blockchain consortium.

    It isn’t clear how long UBS intends to run the tokenization pilot or release it more widely, or which products it is tokenizing.

  • DBS Launches Crypto Trust Offering

    DBS Launches Crypto Trust Offering

    DBS enlarges its cryptocurrency offering with a trust solution from its private banking arm amid growing demand for the asset class even within wealth succession plans. DBS Private Bank launches its cryptocurrency trust solution via wholly-owned DBS Trustee, according to a statement.

    The new trust offering is limited to cryptocurrencies currently supported by the bank’s digital asset exchange – DBS Digital Exchange (DDEX) – which includes Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, and XRP.

    According to the bank, the solution will ensure that critical information like access instructions or wallet backups will be kept confidential when passing on wealth in succession plans due to the additional protection afforded to trusts and their exclusion from the probate process.

    Confidentiality, peace of mind and taxation often emerge as top-of-mind concerns in our conversations with clients, and we would advise them to set up trust structures rather than wills, which are subject to the probate process, said DBS Private Bank’s regional head of family office, wealth planning and insurance solutions Lee Woon Shiu.

    This is especially so considering that international regulations and protocols are still nascent in the digital asset space, which could give rise to complications or unnecessary confusion if proper measures are not in place to prevent them.

    DBS expands its crypto offering amid growing demand for the digital asset class with DDEX registering S$80 million ($59.9 million) in assets under custody and a 10-fold increase of trading volumes since launch to S$30-40 million.

    The exchange currently has 120 clients with more awaiting onboarding.

    In recent years, more clients have expressed interest or are already invested in digital assets, and we expect this trend to accelerate as cryptocurrencies turn more mainstream, said group head of DBS Private Bank Joseph Poon. «Our trust structure allows clients to conveniently hold these assets, with a peace of mind that they will be safely managed and passed on to their intended beneficiaries.»

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  • UOB’s Chan Kok Seong on Risk Culture and Hybrid Work

    UOB’s Chan Kok Seong on Risk Culture and Hybrid Work

    The protracted COVID-19 pandemic is no longer just a disruption to the way we work but has transformed permanently the world of work, Chan Kok Seong, UOB’s group chief risk officer, says in an interview.

    The future of work is shaping into a hybrid model that optimizes employee flexibility, autonomy and performance across locations. While much attention has been focused on enabling virtual teams through technology, it is important to balance the risks of remote working with productivity and agility.

    A paper recently released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore identified two key categories of risks for financial institutions: operational risks and people and culture risks, which all companies across sectors should note as they digitalize their businesses.

    How might companies better manage these emerging risks as they grapple with the embrace of remote working in the digital age

    Organizations will need to confront the technological, operational, legal and compliance risks which arise from a hybrid work model. A change in an organization’s control environment – such as when the majority of its employees perform their roles remotely – can introduce additional information security threat factors.

    For example, virtual workplaces include can be at risk of increased cyberattacks on an external network, potential leakage or misuse of confidential information, identity theft and employees circumventing work processes and controls against compliance guidelines.

    In a virtual work setting, enabling employees’ remote access to internal systems is a requisite. Companies must find a balanced and measured approach to cybersecurity safeguards that works for their operations and which do not compromise their risk controls or business productivity and agility.

  • UBS Bows to Client Demand on Crypto

    UBS Bows to Client Demand on Crypto

    The world’s largest private bank is reportedly tiptoeing into crypto for wealthy clients. UBS is the latest traditional bank to be backed into the nascent asset class.

    Zurich-based UBS is exploring several alternatives for offering digital currency investments to the wealthy private clients of its $4.31 trillion private banking arm, citing sources familiar with the Swiss bank’s plans. In doing so, UBS is acquiescing to demand from its clients, the agency reported.

    Other banks have moved more quickly into space than UBS has. In February, BNY Mellon flagged a digital custody unit for cryptocurrencies planned for later this year and then in March bought a crypto-security start-up. Morgan Stanley began offering its wealthy clients exposure to crypto via funds, and Goldman Sachs recently opened a crypto trading desk.

    The move is hugely symbolic given UBS’ stature in wealth management, as traditional banks have been reticent to outright hostile to the crypto industry. «We are monitoring the developments in the field of digital assets closely,» the bank said. It emphasized its long-held stance that it is mainly interested in the technology which underpins cryptocurrencies.

    A crop of crypto players including banks like Seba and Sygnum have popped up in Switzerland alongside traditional wealth managers. Bitcoin Suisse, an eight-year-old crypto trading start-up, withdrew its application for a banking license after Swiss regulator Finma signaled it would be denied, amid concerns it isn’t well enough equipped to combat money laundering.

  • Former UBS Boss to Head Banker Lobby

    Former UBS Boss to Head Banker Lobby

    The weighty trade group is tapping Marcel Rohner, who ran UBS during the financial crisis, as its next chairman.

    Marcel Rohner will succeed long-standing Swiss Bankers Association Chairman Herbert Scheidt, effective mid-September, the Basel-based lobby said in a statement on Tuesday. The 57-year-old Rohner has sat on the SBA’s board for the past three years.

    He is better known as the man thrust into the CEO job at UBS 16 months before the Swiss wealth manager was forced to take a government bailout in October of 2008. After stepping down four months later, he has taken jobs including deputy chair of Geneva’s Union Bancaire Privée and overseer at property firm Warteck Invest and in firms controlled by Swiss investors Daniel Aegerter.

    Rohner will lead a lobby where interests are drifting apart. Cooperative Raiffeisen left six months ago, disillusioned over the influence of weightier actors like UBS and Credit Suisse at the traditionally conservative and influential business association.

    I am familiar with the highs and lows of the banking business and with large, medium-sized and small institutions, Rohner said in a statement by the SBA. The most important lesson I have learned is that for the banks, shared interests are the norm and diverging interests the exception.

  • OCBC Posts Record High Quarterly Net Profit

    OCBC Posts Record High Quarterly Net Profit

    The quarter’s earnings were driven by broad-based income growth and lower allowances. OCBC Bank recorded a net profit of S$1.5 billion ($1.13 billion) for the January-March period, a jump of 115 percent from the same period last year (S$698 million), and 33 percent higher than the preceding quarter (S$1.13 billion), according to financial results posted on Friday.

    The bank said the record quarterly profit was driven by broad-based income growth and lower allowances. OCBC hit a new high in fee income (S$585 million), while making a far smaller allowance compared with the year-ago period (S$161 million vs. $657 million). Performance was also boosted by its insurance arm Great Eastern, which reported a twelvefold increase in profits this quarter.

    Income from wealth management, comprising insurance, premier and private banking, asset management, and stockbroking, rose 40 percent to S$1.21 billion – 41 percent of the group’s total income.

    Assets under management at Bank of Singapore, its private banking arm, rose 1 percent from the previous quarter to reach $123 billion as of 31 March 2021.

    OCBC highlighted growing momentum from renewed market optimism across its businesses, as well as improved quarterly earnings from its overseas banking subsidiaries.

    While we remain watchful of the prevailing risks in the operating environment, our strong balance sheet and capital position will enable us to capitalize on opportunities arising from improved economic conditions, particularly in ASEAN and Greater China,» OCBC chief Helen Wong said.

    Earnings at Singapore’s «big three» local banks all beat analyst estimates (DBS: S$1.44 billion, OCBC: S$1.13 billion, UOB: S$891.4 million, according to Refinitiv).

    DBS, which announced its first-quarter results last week, also experienced a strong quarter, doubling its income from the quarter before to reach S$2.01 billion and posting record wealth management fees.

    UOB’s earnings grew to S$1 billion for the same period – up 46 percent on the back of strong fees, trading, and investment income.

  • UOB Mulls Citi Asset Hunt in Asia

    UOB Mulls Citi Asset Hunt in Asia

    UOB is the latest bank to express interest in potentially acquiring Citi’s retail assets in the Asia Pacific region.

    UOB chief executive Wee Ee Cheong said that the Singapore lender would provide more clarity on acquisition plans after Citi release more details later this month.

    As long as it’s a strategic fit, is at the right price and makes sense for the long term, we will look at it.

    Numerous banks – both global and local – have reportedly expressed interest in potentially acquiring assets from Citi’s 13-market consumer banking exit in Australia, Bahrain, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and China.

    DBS, Standard Chartered, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank are reportedly eyeing the opportunities in India.

    And Citi’s retail assets in Australia reportedly drew interest from ANZ, ING Bank, Macquarie, Bank of Queensland, and local insurer Suncorp.

    Other banks that are also reportedly in the APAC hunt include Singapore’s OCBC and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

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  • DBS has Strong Interest in Cryptocurrencies

    DBS has Strong Interest in Cryptocurrencies

    The bank is seeing more traction for its crypto assets business, which provides cryptocurrency trading and digital custody for accredited investors.

    Daily trading value on DBS’ digital exchange has grown tenfold since its launch to reach $30-40 million, with an investor base of 120 accredited investors and some S$80 million in digital assets under custody, DBS chief Piyush Gupta said at a media briefing last week as it announced its first-quarter results.

    I do think given the amount of interest in all the four cryptos that we trade now, that interest is quite high. And therefore, I do think it will pick up. But whether it picks up to tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of income over the next few years, it’s hard to say. So my thinking is, we should get in there, figure it out and grow and then we’ll get a better sense for how big this could be in time,» Gupta said, adding that the bank has a pipeline of hundreds of customers.

    The DBS Digital Exchange offers exchange services between SGD, USD, HKD, JPY, and four of the most established cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, and XRP. Gupta said the bank would be scaling the business in subsequent quarters by issuing security tokens and extending the exchange’s trading hours, which currently works during Asian trading hours, to round-the-clock.

    Earlier this month, the bank also announced the development of Partior – an open industry platform with Temasek and J.P. Morgan that aims to reimagine and accelerate value movements for payments, trade, and foreign exchange settlement.

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  • Vietnam stock market daily trading value closes in on Singapore

    Vietnam stock market daily trading value closes in on Singapore

    The average daily securities trading value surged 5.6 times year-on-year in April to $725 million, nearly equivalent to that of Singapore, according to HSBC.

    The lender said in a recent report that the figure, which far exceeds those of Malaysia and Indonesia, was due to the increase in new investors and recovery of the economy.

    In March, the number of new trading accounts hit a record 113,900, taking the total to over 3.02 million.

    The economic recovery is underpinned by strong FDI flows, improvements in the manufacturing segment, and increased consumption, the report said.

    The benchmark VN-Index has risen 12.9 percent in the year-to-date compared to 4.2 percent for Asia ex-Japan.

    The index has repeatedly scaled new peaks this year after surpassing the psychological barrier of 1,204 points first reached in 2018.

    HSBC expected the market to continue to rise in the absence of alternative asset classes and bank deposit rates in decline.

    Though foreign investors have been pulling out of the stock market, HSBC said they would not be able to ignore Vietnam for much longer since it has proved to be one of the most resilient growth economies and 24 out of the 30 blue chips have still not reached the foreign cap.

    Besides, despite rising to record levels, the VN-Index remains 5 percent lower than its five-year average level with a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.1.

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  • Net Profits Rebound at UOB

    Net Profits Rebound at UOB

    The bank’s quarterly earnings surged on the back of strong fees, trading, and investment income as business momentum improved.

    UOB’s earnings grew to S$1 billion ($750 million) in the first quarter of 2021 – up 46 percent from the previous quarter’s S$688 million and up 18 percent from the same period last year, according to financial results posted on Thursday.

    Income grew 11 percent to reach pre-Covid levels at S$2.5 billion, while fee income reached a new high to reach S$638 million (+22 percent), led by wealth management fees from investments and bancassurance. The bank also saw stronger activity in loans and investment banking, as well as treasury income. Its wealth management assets grew 10 percent to S$136 billion, of which 60 percent was from customers abroad.

    The bank highlighted growth across its key markets in Singapore, North Asia, and its Asean franchise. It expressed optimism as sentiment and business activities pick up and trade flows resume between Asean and Greater China.

    Across our key markets, we are seeing robust credit demand from our large corporate and institutional clients, Wee Ee Cheong, UOB deputy chairman, and CEO, said.

    Sustainability was a key theme for UOB, as total sustainable financing reached $12 billion during the quarter. During this period, the bank also issued Singapore’s first sustainability bond and global first dual-tranche sustainability bond.

    The bank’s AUM in ESG-focused investments also reached S$2.2 billion at the end of the quarter.

    DBS, which announced its first-quarter results last week, also experienced a strong quarter, doubling its income from the quarter before to reach S$2.01 billion and posting record wealth management fees.

    OCBC is due to release its quarterly results tomorrow, but its insurance arm Great Eastern has already reported a twelvefold increase in profits this quarter.

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  • HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC’s asset management arm appoints a new head of credit research in Asia amid an ongoing expansion across its product range and distribution capabilities in the region.

    HSBC Asset Management appoints Seok Poh Yeoh as head of credit research for Asia, according to a statement, effective immediately.

    In her Hong Kong-based role, Yeoh reports locally to head of Asian fixed income Elizabeth Allen as well as Paris-based global head of credit research Tina Radovic.

    Yeoh has 16 years of industry experience and was most recently a financial and corporate credit research analyst at Credit Suisse. She rejoins HSBC Asset Management after first joining in 2012 as a financial analyst.

    The latest hire follows announced ambitions by HSBC Asset Management to enhance its platform in mainland China, India, and Southeast Asia, most notably for the high net worth product range across alternatives, sustainability, and thematic equities.

    According to the bank, HSBC Asset Management has Asian fixed income assets under management totaling nearly $73 billion as of March 31 this year.

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  • HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC’s asset management arm appoints a new head of credit research in Asia amid an ongoing expansion across its product range and distribution capabilities in the region.

    HSBC Asset Management appoints Seok Poh Yeoh as head of credit research for Asia, according to a statement, effective immediately.

    In her Hong Kong-based role, Yeoh reports locally to head of Asian fixed income Elizabeth Allen as well as Paris-based global head of credit research Tina Radovic.

    Yeoh has 16 years of industry experience and was most recently a financial and corporate credit research analyst at Credit Suisse. She rejoins HSBC Asset Management after first joining in 2012 as a financial analyst.

    The latest hire follows announced ambitions by HSBC Asset Management to enhance its platform in mainland China, India, and Southeast Asia, most notably for the high net worth product range across alternatives, sustainability, and thematic equities.

    According to the bank, HSBC Asset Management has Asian fixed income assets under management totaling nearly $73 billion as of March 31 this year.

  • Citi Registers Stellar Growth in Asia

    Citi Registers Stellar Growth in Asia

    Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser’s first-quarter debut featured strong earnings worldwide and in Asia where the American lender is eyeing growth opportunities, particularly from private wealth in the region.

    Citi’s consumer banking unit in Asia saw $5.2 billion in net new money in the first quarter of 2021 – a 13 percent year-on-year increase – according to a memo seen.

    Investment sales, investment revenue and invested assets all saw decent growth at 48 percent, 22 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

    Citi’s private banking arm delivered its best quarter ever with a 2 percent increase, driven in part by growth in managed investments.

    Citi also posted strong growth from its investment banking business in Asia which saw an 84 percent increase in revenues from continued momentum in equity capital markets.

    Looking ahead, we have excellent momentum, a crisp strategy and tremendous opportunity across our region, said Citi’s APAC chief executive Peter Babej in the memo. The coming months and years will be defining for Citi.

    Overall, the bank posted $4.1 billion of revenue and $1.3 billion of net income in the region which contributed to 21 percent of global revenues, according to its latest published results.

  • Singapore and Thailand Link National Payment Infrastructures

    Singapore and Thailand Link National Payment Infrastructures

    In a world-first, the two countries have established a link between Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s equivalent PromptPay.

    Customers in Singapore with DBS, OCBC, and UOB accounts, and customers of Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn Bank, Krung Thai Bank, and Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand will be able to securely perform cross-border peer-to-peer transactions of up to S$1,000 or THB25,000 using just their mobile numbers.

    The transactions will take place at the near real-time speed at a fee that is competitive to remittance services. Over time, participating banks and use cases will be scaled up and expanded, the Association of Banks in Singapore said in an announcement on Thursday.

    Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank of Thailand first mooted the possibility of a link between their respective countries’ networks in 2017.  The announcement said the two sides spent the past few years working to align their target operating model, business rules, technical connectivity as well as legal framework.

    Wee Ee Cheong, ABS chairman, deputy chairman and CEO of UOB, said the initiative is also «an important step to connecting payment systems across ASEAN at scale in the future.

    MAS managing director Ravi Menon previously said MAS is keen to help other central banks in the region to expand the linkage, so that more people across Southeast Asia can benefit.

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