Generally and stereotypically, people recognize Switzerland because of the Alps, cheese, and great banks. We, following the brilliant Andy Samu’s Disruption Banking article, will be focusing on the latter, as UBS bank is, according to Financial Times, the largest manager of wealth in the entire world. Assets of this Switzerland-based bank are supposed to be worth over $2.3 trillion.

This raises the question: how will their competitors behave? Will they try to steal a chunk of that enormous pie that is currently in UBS’s hands? Or maybe they will not manage to. We need to remember, that we are not talking of some anonymous firms, but rather about the likes of Bank of America, Credit Suisse (another Swiss bank), JPMorgan, or Morgan Stanley.

Changes in UBS’s structure

There have been a few changes in UBS’s structure in 2020, but the most important one would have to be Ralph Hamers coming from ING to take over UBS. According to Andy Samu, that is indeed a big step in the right direction. But as we mentioned,Hamers is not the only new face in UBS’s decisive body.

Iqbal Khan has joined it as well, having left his job at Credit Suisse. He will now work in the Wealth Management team, and one of his first moves on the new position was to cut 500 positions from the wealth management business.

There are still echoes resounding of a small scandal involving Iqbal Khan, who, while still at Credit Suisse, was working in the Wealth Management division. Bloomberg accused him of spying (that is how they called his move to UBS) and quoted David Herro, who is the deputy chairman of Credit Suisse’s biggest shareholder – Harris Associates.

It appears that the story goes back to early 2019 and a cocktail party in Zurich. Also, Tidjane Thiam, the CEO of Credit Suisse at that time was involved. The story says that Khan allegedly purchased a property next to Thiam’s, and during rebuilding, Khan was supposed to be causing a lot of “disruptions”. The two were supposed to fall out after that. The true reason, rather than quarrel over the property, was probably Khan’s ambition to achieve greater success, than the one he could seize in Credit Suisse.

Khan seems to thrive in the new work environment, as he, along with Tom Naratil, expands the contact between top wealth management clients and investment banking. But this may be a difficult task, as the private banking sector and investment banking sector have rather different sets of goals and tend to mix rather ineffectively.

What’s next for Credit Suisse?

In November 2019, David Miller became the head of Credit Suisse’s Investment Baking and Capital Markets department. He has a totally different approach to banking, and the priorities he set are almost the total opposite to Khan’s.

Like every other big player in the banking world, Credit Suisse is looking upon China, wondering if it will be able to become “Approved for business” there and eventually strengthen its position. In April 2020, CSRC (China Securities Regulatory Commission) offered Credit Suisse to become its majority shareholder in the CSFS (Credit Suisse Founder Securities Limited).

To read how the story unfolded, and what Thomas Gottstein, the CEO of Credit Suisse had to say about it, visit the original Disruption Banking piece, available in the following link: https://disruptionbanking.com/2020/06/25/a-view-to-a-coffee-suisse/

The article also tells a story of Luckin Coffee and the investigations that took place, causing a not very pleasant situation for Credit Suisse itself.