UBS to set up branches in south next year

UBS AG plans to invest US$10 million to set up Taichung and Kaohsiung branches in March next year, aiming to expand the bank's wealth management business in Taiwan, Dennis Chen (陳允懋), head of UBS Wealth Management Taiwan, said yesterday.

With the addition of the two new branches, UBS aims to see its wealth management business increase by 30 percent to 40 percent annually, Chen said.

UBS currently has only one Taipei branch in Taiwan. But the bank has been facing increasing competition from its foreign rivals in Taiwan, including HSBC, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and ABN Amro who enjoy relatively larger local networks of branches.

HSBC is expected to enjoy a network of 47 branches after it absorbs the financially-troubled The Chinese Bank (中華銀行) as announced last week.

Citibank has a network of 66 branches after it completed its acquisition of the Bank of Overseas Chinese (華僑銀行) earlier this month. Standard Chartered has seen the number of local branches increase to 86 after it merged the Hsinchu International Bank (新竹國際商銀) in July, while ABN Amro boosted its local branches to 37 after acquired the Taitung Business Bank (台東企銀) in June.

In line with its expansion, the Swiss bank plans to recruit more financial consultants with backgrounds in securities, insurance and investment trust to bring sophisticated services to local customers.

These consultants, called financial advisors by the bank, will be sent to UBS' banking school in Singapore in April and July next year for further training, Chen said.

The banking school, UBS Wealth Management Campus Asia Pacific, is aimed to help provide training for the bank's wealth management financial advisors across the Asia Pacific region.

UBS Taiwan has recruited 35 financial advisors this year, after recruiting 30 last year.

Chen said the bank's employees have seen a rise in salary between 3 percent and 5 percent this year, while the best-performing financial advisors are expected to earn an year-end bonus as high as an 18-month salary.

As the market for wealth management is booming, Chen said he expected the bank's financial advisors to earn a bonus of 24-month salary next year.

The Financial Supervisory Commission in August approved UBS' application to set up the Taichung and Kaohsiung branches. At the time, the bank said it aimed to manage 10 percent of the nation's private wealth by 2015. The bank, which currently manages about 1 percent of onshore wealth in Taiwan, estimated Taiwan's wealth management market size could top US$420 billion, trailing only Japan and China in Asia.