Building wealth for tomorrow

WHEN UBS first established its Singapore presence in the 1970s, it was the first Swiss bank to believe in the young city-state’s nascent ambitions to be an international finance hub.

More than half a century later, Singapore is a dynamic global financial centre and UBS – now the world’s largest wealth manager – has planted its biggest Asia Pacific office in the heart of downtown Singapore. It is a testament to a partnership that has strengthened with each passing decade.

Strategic hub for Asia Pacific

“Singapore is an important regional hub for UBS and is integral to our strategy for growth in Asia,” says Young Jin Yee, Co-Head UBS Global Wealth Management Asia Pacific and Country Head UBS Singapore.

Singapore ranks as one of UBS’s top two wealth management centres in the Asia Pacific region alongside Hong Kong. UBS has established the city-state as its South-east Asian headquarters for investment banking operations, as well as its Asia Pacific hub for foreign exchange, rates and credit.

This makes Singapore a critical node in UBS’s global network, particularly as Asia Pacific drives both assets and profit growth. In 2024, the region’s wealth management business generated 24 per cent of the group’s underlying profit before tax and 21 per cent of net new assets.

“As the largest truly global wealth manager, we can connect our clients with their peers, leaders and experts globally who can inspire and empower them to achieve their ambitions,” Young says.

Riding the APAC wealth wave

Wealth in the region has outpaced that of the rest of the world, according to UBS’s Global Wealth Report 2024. Since the report’s first edition in 2008, APAC wealth has surged 177 per cent. The region’s billionaires have also seen wealth jump 141 per cent over the last decade, UBS’s 2024 Billionaire Ambitions report states.

“We see strong growth opportunities based on demographics and the rapid creation of wealth,” says Iqbal Khan, Co-President UBS Global Wealth Management and President of UBS Asia Pacific.

“Our leadership in wealth management – where we serve two out of three billionaires in Asia Pacific and half of APAC family offices – provides unparalleled insights into the unique needs of our clients.”

The recent family office boom exemplifies this well. In Singapore alone, the number of single family offices has grown from 400 in 2020 to over 2,000 in 2024.

With most family offices surveyed for UBS’s latest Global Family Office Report planning to allocate more assets to APAC in the next five years, the region is set to stay an investment hotspot.

A people business, nurturing talent

“Our people are our biggest priority in running a successful business,” Young emphasises. UBS’s talent development approach leverages Singapore’s cosmopolitan, highly educated workforce while helping to build the financial hub’s talent pipeline.

The UBS University in Singapore – the first and largest in Asia Pacific – has been a cornerstone in cultivating top-tier banking talent. Through its industry-leading certification programmes, such as the Certified Wealth Management Advisor (CWMA), a hallmark of Swiss wealth management excellence and accredited by Singapore’s Institute of Banking and Finance – the firm has been setting a new industry benchmark for professional development.

UBS is also equipping its workforce for the future with skills in areas such as sustainability and artificial intelligence. The firm has trained over 350 bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore so far, in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth, reinforcing its leadership in sustainable finance and responsible investing.

“The availability of diverse, skilled talent in Singapore, as well as access to resources supporting the firms’ talent development efforts, have enhanced Singapore’s value proposition as a key global financial centre,” says Daniel Brandenberger, Head of Human Resources (Singapore) and Human Resource Business Partner for UBS Global Wealth Management (SEA). “We’re investing in this environment to attract top talent and nurture future leaders in finance.”

Its talent development programmes include the UBS Graduate Talent Program to attract early career talent and UBS-SUPER (UBS Singapore University Program for Employability and Resilience). The UBS-SUPER, launched during the pandemic, has provided over 400 fresh graduates and mid-career professionals with on-the-job training, upskilling opportunities and mentorship. A new Polytechnic Graduate Program will also be launched with support from IBF to nurture banking talent.

International mobility is a key facet of talent development, as UBS’s collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on the International Postings Programme shows. “UBS colleagues gained new perspectives and insights on overseas assignments. They also became ambassadors of Singapore,” says Brandenberger.

He adds: “Upskilling our talents on the latest banking trends including digital, ESG, impact investing, philanthropy, and succession planning, are key to addressing and capturing future opportunities.”

Investing in the next generation

As Asia grows wealthier, next generation wealth is on the rise too. UBS actively works with many of Asia’s wealthiest business families to nurture their heirs and successors.

Its Leadership Excellence and Development Series, aimed at clients aged 18 to 25, focuses on equipping young participants to advance their family legacy as future leaders and stewards of wealth.

For ultra-high net worth clients aged 20 to 35, the firm runs an annual Global Rising Investors programme which covers finance, wealth management and personal development. It culminates in an invitation to the Young Investor Organization, a community of over 1,700 trailblazers from influential families in more than 75 countries.

Community at the core

UBS’s community engagement extends beyond the affluent. Its decade-long sponsorship of the annual “Singaporean of the Year” award, which has become a mainstay of community recognition, honours individuals and groups for significant societal contributions.

Past winners include the Schooling family, who made Olympic history with Singapore’s first gold medal; and Koh Seng Choon, founder of the Dignity Kitchen, a food court that empowers people with disabilities through employment.

“Over the past decade, the award has grown from a humble recognition into a beacon of inspiration, celebrating the extraordinary spirit of our people,” says Edmund Koh, Chairman UBS Asia Pacific. “Each year, we’ve witnessed individuals and groups who have gone above and beyond, embodying resilience, compassion and innovation.”

UBS is also behind several stunning installations marrying art and sustainability, made accessible to the public. These have ranged from Singapore’s tallest upcycled festive tree at Fort Canning to the “Taking Flight” installation of butterflies and birds – both fashioned out of repurposed plastic bottles.

In 2022, it launched, with sustainable street artist Bordalo II, a 7-metre-tall sculpture of the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger made entirely of waste materials such as portable loos and road dividers. The sculpture kicked off UBS’s Trash-Sure campaign to highlight the severity of the climate crisis.

Driving social impact

UBS amplifies its social impact through the UBS Optimus Foundation, its award-winning platform for philanthropists and impact investors, and through employee volunteering.

Set up in Singapore in 2019, the Foundation alongside its donor advised funds has since mobilised nearly S$110 million in donations and S$66 million in grants to over 100 charity programmes globally, of which more than half are in Singapore.

Through the Foundation’s grantees and other impact partners, UBS actively engages employees in both skills-based and service-based volunteering opportunities. These align with UBS’s core impact priorities – health, education, and climate. Recent initiatives include befriending at Care Corner, guided trips with Children’s Wishing Well, Earth Day clean-ups with Waterways Watch Society, and citizen science activities with Nature Society Singapore and WWF Singapore.

AI and innovation to the fore

Recognising that riding the region’s wealth wave requires cutting-edge capabilities, UBS is doubling down on innovation, especially in artificial intelligence. And Singapore has witnessed multiple firsts for UBS in this realm.

From its AI & Transformation Factory in Singapore, the firm’s first worldwide, it expects to develop modular, innovative solutions scalable beyond the region.

These include offerings such as UBS Asset Management’s first Tokenized Investment Fund (uMINT), launched out of Singapore. Built on Ethereum distributed ledger technology, the innovative solution meets growing investor appetite for tokenised financial assets.

These future-facing initiatives are housed within the firm’s 400,000 sq ft Asia Pacific office at 9 Penang Road – itself a showcase of sustainability and innovation.

Running entirely on renewable energy, the building stands amid an eclectic mix of museums and heritage sites rather than skyscrapers. The largest LEED Platinum project in South-east Asia for interior offices at launch, it also earned the Green Mark Platinum certification from Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority.

Commemorating SG60

“At UBS, we believe in the power of art to inspire, connect, and enrich communities,” says Young.

To commemorate Singapore’s 60th year of independence in 2025, the firm launched a year-long “Art for All” community programme with the unveiling of a 60-metre-long tapestry, which was woven out of discarded textiles weighing over 35kg, and has since been further repurposed into gifts.

The tapestry, which made the Singapore Book of Records, brought UBS employees, children from non-profit Care Corner, and community partners together for community weaving activities and art workshops.

Fairgoers at ART SG, South-east Asia’s leading international art fair, were also invited to weave at the UBS studio. UBS – no stranger to art advocacy and promotion – was the founding and lead partner of ART SG for a third consecutive year in 2025.

As UBS and Singapore look to the coming decades, their shared success – reflected not only in financial metrics but in communities built – demonstrates what is possible when global vision meets local commitment.

“As a global financial institution, UBS is proud to support Singapore’s continued success as a leading financial hub, while actively contributing to the communities in which we operate,” says Young.

“The future of banking isn’t just about following wealth, it’s about building the ecosystem for prosperity, innovation and social impact to converge. In Singapore, UBS is writing that future.”

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