UBS must reduce costs in its Swiss operations. A key lever in this is the local presence of the bank in cities and regions. The head of the Swiss business, Sabine Keller-Busse, expects that after completing the Credit Suisse integration by the end of 2026, the branch network will encompass around 190 locations, as she mentioned at a client event on Wednesday. This is approximately the same number of branches UBS had previously

Merging Duplicate Branches

In 2025, UBS will begin consolidating duplicate branches, Keller said. This involves 85 locations, with the «better» branch being retained in each case. Currently, there are about 95 CS branches in Switzerland.

«The CS crisis has underscored the importance of a solid and sustainable business model, where pricing must reflect the underlying risks and allow for adequate profitability,» she said. It is UBS's task to address the structural problems inherited from the Credit Suisse acquisition. Only by doing so can the company return to its previous profitability levels.

Need for Increased Returns

Achieving growth in strategic business areas and optimizing the balance sheet is necessary for this. The target for the Swiss unit, which is named «Personal & Corporate Banking» within the group, is a return on attributed equity of around 19 percent. In the first half of 2024, this figure was still 14.7 percent.

The fundamental issues in the CS business, such as higher risk tolerance and looser lending standards, need to be resolved. These led to increased credit losses. Some customer relationships had an imbalanced risk-return pricing. Additionally, the private banking sector had structurally low profitability.

Integration Process Underway

The integration process is being executed with focus. Customer migration from UBS to CS will be implemented in phases starting in 2025. Some more complex customer relationships are already being handled manually.

Keller-Busse sees advantages in combining the two market leaders for both private and business clients and highlights the broad product range.