After curbing their investment banking ambitions, Switzerland’s biggest banks are again luring rich clients and this could help them weather the financial storm as rivals struggle to find a new identity.
From Reuters:
By Sam Cage and Martin de Sa’Pinto – Analysis
ZURICH (Reuters) – After curbing their investment banking ambitions, Switzerland’s biggest banks are again luring rich clients and this could help them weather the financial storm as rivals struggle to find a new identity.
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Both UBS (UBSN.VX)(UBS.N), Switzerland’s biggest bank, and No. 2 lender Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) reported hopeful signs this week, saying they had attracted rich clients’ inflows at the start of 2009.
The wealth management business, for which the Swiss banks were renowned before they tainted their reputation with forays into investment banking, provides the steady cash-flow that banks are desperate to generate in time of high volatility.
For UBS, which came to the verge of collapse and suffered billions of dollars in client withdrawals, the announcement on Tuesday that it had managed to turn the tide and attract above 3 billion Swiss francs ($2.60 billion) of new client money in January was the single most important sign for analysts.
To read the full article, visit reuters.com
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