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| Edited By: |Source: Reuters |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 04:48 AM IST
Swiss bank UBS the top wealth manager in Asia, plans to hire 2,200 new staff in the region, the head of UBS in Asia Pacific said in an Swiss magazine interview, a move that would return it to its pre-crisis splendour.
Chi-Won Yoon, who became chief executive of UBS Group Asia Pacific in June 2009, also said the euro's gyrations could influence UBS' second quarter results, according to an article on the website of trade magazine "Schweizer Bank".
"The defensive phase, in which we tried to mantain our standing and contain any loss of position, is behind us. We are now back on the offensive," Yoon, who joined UBS in 1997 and is also a UBS executive board member, was quoted as saying in an interview.
"We have 7,300 employees in the region. In three years they should be 9,500, the same level we had in mid-2007."
Yoon said UBS' expansion would go beyond the private banking business.
"We remain the leading wealth manager in the region but we also have a strong position in investment banking and securities trading. Here we are going to continue to expand," he said.
Yoon said UBS was, together with US investment bank Goldman Sachs, already a leader in securities trading and investment banking in China. Right now, most of the business was done outside mainland China, like stock listings in Hong Kong.
But he said that banking activity in China itself would become more and more attractive.
"The private banking business of our UBS Securities division in four big Chinese cities is growing vigorously," he said.
China is already the seventh country in the world in terms of millionaires. However, Yoon said bureaucracy and administrative procedures remained a challenge.
Beyond China, UBS is focusing on India, HongKong, Singapore, South Korea and Australia, Yoon said.
