Her influence at Credit Suisse was so great that when news broke in October 2022 of Young joining Deutsche Bank, some of her soon-to-be former colleagues were dismayed.
Her move took place at a time when Credit Suisse was reeling under a series of issues, including exposures to certain investment banking clients that turned sour, which required a US$4 billion ($5.1 billion) recapitalisation, plus job cuts.
In an interview with The Edge Singapore, Young says she had in fact given her resignation notice informally more than a week before the recapitalisation announcement, which she says she did not see coming. She was told to stay away from the office to let the rumours cool down, but that only fuelled more speculation, as she had never worked from home before.
But when her resignation was formally announced, it still came as a jolt for her Credit Suisse colleagues. Having hired almost half of them, her departure at such a crucial moment was widely interpreted as a signal of her doubts about the restructuring’s success.
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Young had barely started at Deutsche Bank when a much bigger movement shook the banking industry. On March 19, 2023, a Sunday, the Swiss government directed UBS to buy over Credit Suisse for US$3.3 billion. It was not merely the coming together of the largest and second-largest Swiss banks; it reshaped the banking industry in every market the two are in. The drama over the weekend, which triggered responses from other central banks, including Singapore’s, was something the industry will not forget anytime soon.
Right after, Young began receiving calls asking her to return to the merged entity to help with the integration. With her experience, Young felt she had a responsibility not only to her Credit Suisse clients but also to her former colleagues.
However, Young admits she was initially reluctant. Coming from Credit Suisse, she was well aware of the challenges ahead. She did not assume that the integration would be a success and understood the poor optics of leaving Deutsche Bank after barely four months, especially after bringing many former Credit Suisse colleagues with her.
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Still, she was aware that her focus at Deutsche Bank would be to help grow its wealth management business. The German bank was a major force in Europe, but its assets under management (AUM) in Asia Pacific were relatively modest and had room for growth. By joining UBS, she could help stabilise Credit Suisse’s wealth management business rather than let it fall apart as rivals circle and poach both client advisors and AUM.
Young was wrestling with her doubts when a caller, whom she would not name, reached out and convinced her to make the move. This individual, she says, had been “very, very important” throughout her career and someone she could not refuse. “The person literally told me, ‘Look, this bank developed you for 20 years. You should come back and do this’,” she remembers.
Thus, from day one at UBS, Young put herself on a “crazy” schedule, meeting one client after another, so as to send a clear message of confidence. “I had to stabilise the clients, stabilise the people.”
In less than a year, Young and her colleagues have gone far beyond. In 1QFY2023, the period when the announcement of the merger with Credit Suisse was made, UBS in Asia Pacific reported US$456 billion in invested assets for its wealth management business. The following quarter, with the AUM from Credit Suisse, this number became US$635 billion. In 3QFY2024, this number reached US$678 billion. However, there was a slight dip to US$665 billion to end the year. The last thing wealth managers want to feel is the funds of clients slipping through their hands.
Much has changed in the nine months since. In the most recent and “exceptional” 3QFY2025, invested assets in Asia Pacific climbed to a record US$816 billion, an increase of 20% y-o-y. Including the asset management division’s AUM, this brings the bank’s total invested assets in Asia Pacific above the US$1 trillion mark for the first time. The Americas remains the largest wealth management market for UBS, but growth was at half the rate, with an increase of 9% y-o-y to US$2.28 trillion.
Net new assets for UBS in Asia Pacific surged from US$7.3 billion in 3QFY2024 to US$37.9 billion in 3QFY2025, which brings the 9MFY2025 total to US$57 billion. To put it into context, this number is more than half the AUM of some of the other wealth managers. “This is really huge growth, and that’s the power of our scale,” says Young.
‘We didn’t shrink’
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What makes the growth in net new assets satisfying is that half of that came from new clients, and the other half from existing clients, who are happy to consolidate their assets with UBS with the integration. The bigger AUM translated, naturally, into higher profit before tax for 3QFY2025 in Asia Pacific wealth management of US$1.2 billion, an increase of 32% y-o-y. “We didn’t shrink. Everyone thought we would shrink, but we continued growing,” says Young.
She attributes this to strong branding, a successful integration, and a focus on improving revenue while extracting cost synergies. “There were some challenges, but now, we are reaping the benefits. This year just totally demonstrated our growth,” says Young.
During the integration, there were clients who indeed decamped for other managers as they do not want to over-concentrate their assets, but UBS was able to maintain a retention rate of around 90%. “It is not so easy to take from UBS, really, because we have the platform, the support and also the brand,” she says.
When Young was at Credit Suisse, she was proud of how good the brand was. However, upon carrying the UBS name card, she realised that more doors could be opened. “Clients associate UBS as a must-have if I’m rich, the way I should have a Bentley or a Rolls-Royce. We pride ourselves on that branding,” she says.
The culture of banks
Over the years, despite the common Swiss heritage, UBS and Credit Suisse have evolved to form two rather distinct company cultures. Credit Suisse was described as more “entrepreneurial,” while UBS is more reserved. She adds: “Well, just imagine you are Number Two. You’re trying to chase Number One. So, you got to be a little gung-ho, right?”
While streaks of entrepreneurial spirit led to some exceptions at Credit Suisse, such deviations are rarely a good thing for banks, and the lax risk controls contributed to its downfall. By contrast, UBS bankers tend to be highly compliant, buoyed by the confidence that comes from a strong brand and platform.
Young acknowledges that bringing the two together and finding the right balance is a delicate process, but one where the benefits are clear for both sides. With the infusion of some entrepreneurial drive, UBS can now tap into a refreshed mindset and think more creatively. For former Credit Suisse colleagues now at UBS, it is “refreshing” to see that having clearly defined guardrails for how things should be done can actually be valuable.
Beyond the melding of the two cultures, the integration requires tedious migration of clients’ data, which involves months of planning and putting Swiss precision to the test. Young recalls having lunch with a “very important” client. ‘Tell me more about the migration.’ ‘Oh, we’ve already migrated, ’ she remembers. “He didn’t even feel it — that’s how smooth it was to the client.”
If UBS can have its way, it will want more of such clients. According to UBS, the Asia Pacific region is home to 981 billionaires, almost 40% of the world’s total, and three in five of these billionaires are its clients. Some of the clients come on board not as individuals but as a family office. After years of steady growth driven by friendly regulatory frameworks, there are now around 2,000 family offices here, and six out of 10 of them are UBS clients.
The bank has been operating in Singapore for more than half a century, and the country’s neutral stance in the geopolitical environment today suits UBS just fine. Investors and the wealthy from overseas like this safe haven where they can park their assets.
Within the Asia Pacific region, the bank has a long-held twin-hub strategy covering a total of 11 markets, and one which is set to continue for sure. Singapore is the hub for Southeast Asia, with coverage of India and Australia. Hong Kong, of course, is for Greater China. The clients, naturally, are quite “fluid”. They want options, whether it is Singapore or Hong Kong, and quite a lot of them actually have dual accounts, she says.
For UBS, paying all the attention to this part of the world makes plain business sense. The growth of Singapore as a financial services hub will help draw even more investments here, as Asia, which already accounts for 36% of the world’s wealth, continues the “exponential” rate versus other markets. “The base is already big and will continue to grow,” she says.
Young says what UBS needs to do is to figure out how to capture this growing pie. Thus, efforts to capture growth from the two already substantial twin hubs will continue, but the bank has, over the last few years, started to develop new booking centres and new markets as well.
The UBS branch at 9 Penang Road. With “exceptional” growth following the integration with Credit Suisse, UBS has grown its investable assets in Asia Pacific to a record of more than US$1 trillion
Next-generation Japan
Besides the growing affluence of Asean, UBS is actively wooing new growth in Australia, Japan and India, as part of what Young calls a “multi-shoring” strategy. Many might associate China with the big growth story, but wealth management is an industry that can also generate growth elsewhere. “Yes, it is one of our markets, but it is one of our 11 markets,” says Young.
The UBS brand, while global, does not carry equal weight in every market. That is why, in certain markets, UBS is partnering with strong local players to optimise both operations and growth. This formula of collaborating with local partners rather than going it alone is seen in other geographies. For example, since 2019, UBS has had a tie-up with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust to offer a broader range of services. Brazil, another huge emerging market, has a similar model, too. “These are all huge markets to tap into. As an industry, the penetration of wealth management is not there yet. I think there is huge growth from these markets,” she adds.
To Young, Japan has become more interesting. For years, it has been seen as very conservative, with decades of wealth built during its boom years, and if its people use wealth managers at all, they tend to stay with familiar local banks.
Furthermore, for the Japanese, whatever they do not hold in yen in cash, they would invest in real estate. Yet outside of Tokyo, Japan’s property market is not exactly booming. The yen, meanwhile, is suffering from decades of gradual depreciation.
As more young Japanese take part in decision-making, many educated in US business schools, they struggle to understand why their parents are content to keep their money in cash. With the yen’s depreciation, this translates into a smaller inheritance for them. ”So, they want to be managing the wealth more proactively,” says Young.
Beyond the latent wealth already accumulated, another trend is boosting UBS’s growth potential in Japan. After years of corporate governance reforms, many business families that have built multi-industry conglomerates have been encouraged to focus on their core businesses and divest non-core assets.
“That means there are a lot of M&A activities, and when there’s M&A, it means there is monetisation, which means more opportunities for us to step in the manage the wealth,” reasons Young, adding that UBS has around 100 client advisors, and therefore “able and very ready” to capture the growth.
India and Australia
Australia is another potential big market. UBS used to run a wealth management business there, but in 2015, following a management buyout, Crestone Wealth Management was formed and was subsequently bought by LGT in 2021. UBS, meanwhile, was focused on growing its investment banking business.
With the integration of Credit Suisse, UBS has inherited a wealth management business again, giving it a full suite of services to capture the growth potential manifesting in a bigger way. “Our Australia strategy is more than the one bank strategy, which we didn’t use to have, and we are going to capitalise on that,” says Young.
For years, when the wealth management industry talks about India’s growth potential, the spotlight has been on NRIs (non-resident Indians), professionals running businesses or holding senior roles in multinational finance and tech companies.
Over the last couple of years, India’s booming stock market has helped trigger a series of blockbuster listings, with the overall effect of creating a lot more wealth than before.
UBS in April signed an exclusive collaboration deal with 360 ONE WAM, a leading wealth manager in India. Under the terms of this deal, UBS sold its largely Credit Suisse legacy business to its local partner for US$36 million, and in return, bought warrants worth some US$220 million that will give UBS a stake of around 5%.
Pooling the two firms’ clients and operational remit means they can serve both the resident and the NRI business together. Besides client coverage, the collaboration with 360 ONE expands the range of product offerings overseas clients can tap for investments in India, which otherwise has been limited to indices or funds. The collaboration with 360 ONE means UBS clients can access other products the local partner can sell, and similarly, local clients can access the global platform of UBS, says Young.
She is also positive about the 360 ONE partnership for another reason. Its founding team hails from India Infoline Finance, a prominent domestic financial services firm. “The reason why we could talk the same language with our partner is because their set-up was structured in a way that reflects similar principles,” says Young.
With common ground and goals, there is a chance that UBS will take a larger stake in 360 ONE down the road, although there’s no confirmed timeline for when that might happen. “This is one space we are quite excited about, and we are hoping to generate the synergies next year,” says Young.
Singapore and Hong Kong
Singapore and Hong Kong continue to be the two key Asia Pacific booking centres for the wealth management industry, not just for UBS. For the bank, both hubs are equally important, each with its own clear strengths and catchment areas. Furthermore, with physical distance not exactly a barrier, many clients book at both centres.
Young makes it a point to acknowledge the work of her Hong Kong-based colleague Amy Lo, the bank’s veteran of some three decades. Lo wears multiple hats at UBS: chairman of global wealth management Asia, co-head of wealth management Asia Pacific, and head and chief executive of UBS Hong Kong.
“There’s a lot of institutional knowledge that both of us can put together. When we do the integration, it was very clear what should be done, what should not be done,” says Young, referring to Lo.
Young was initially wary that she was in for a tough job to be in the same team as former competitors. What she found out was instead a team of “supportive” and “embracing” colleagues. “There’s no red and blue. Everybody belongs to the same team, and that’s what we are really happy about,” she says, referring to the colour shorthand for the two respective brands.
For Young, both centres are collaborating to generate more comprehensive coverage of the entire Asia Pacific. As clients are “very, very fluid”, the competition, if any, is not Singapore versus Hong Kong, but versus other popular centres such as Dubai, Switzerland and London. “The competition out there is for us to see how we can adapt and really to make sure that we can engage the clients,” she says.
All in, she says there’s a “huge business opportunity”, with “lots of growth” and that UBS is ready to capture this growth. “We are probably the most diversified in terms of our footprint. So, we are able to draw growth from every angle.”
