Swiss giant UBS is working on a foray into the digital Asian banking market. The bank plans to set up a cooperation with a domestic firm but the tie-up hasn’t yet taken off.
China’s gigantic potential is well known and the number of millionaires in the market reached 3.5 million by the end of 2018. That number will very likely swell substantially in coming years.
UBS established its foothold in the Far East years ago, in the knowledge that the level of wealth is growing more rapidly than in other markets. The next new bid however is aimed at the affluent part of society, ie the well-off middle class.
Hitting a Snag
To reach out to this vast sector of society, UBS has decided to team up with a local competitor, state-owned Qianhai Financial Holdings, which is based in Shenzhen, according to a report in Swiss Sunday paper «Sonntagszeitung» (report in German behind paywall).
UBS and Qianhai aim to develop a digital wealth management, a project that has not progressed very much, the newspaper said. The reason for the delay was a license that hadn’t yet been issued. UBS didn’t comment on its project.
Japanese Blueprint
The Swiss bank is using businesses established elsewhere as a blueprint for the project with Qianhai. It has a joint venture with Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Trust it said will serve as an example, as finews.com reported in June.
Martin Blessing, who will depart as co-head of wealth management in October and be replaced by Iqbal Khan, said in his departing note that the Sumitomo cooperation will serve as a blueprint.
