The bank was able to boast a sharply improved set of profit figures for the second quarter and first half of the year.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, reported a surge in year-on-year pre-tax income (PTI) for the second quarter of 2018, with PTI rising 81 per cent to SFr1.052 billion ($1.064 billion). Net income attributable to shareholders rose 114 per cent to SFr647 million.

For the first six months of this year, pre-tax income was SFr2.106 billion, a 68 per cent rise from the same half of 2017, the Zurich-listed bank said today.

Across all segments of the bank, assets under management rose 7 per cent from the same quarter in 2017 to SFr1.398 trillion; there were SFr15.4 billion of net new assets (NNA), although this decelerated from the SFr25.1 billion NNA result in the first quarter of the year.

Through the wealth management arm of the bank, there were net new assets of SFr23.5 billion in the first half of this year.

Within the international wealth management division, pre-tax income rose 19 per cent year-on-year to SFr433 million, of which private banking, at SFr347 million, saw a 17 per cent rise. This division’s cost/income ratio was 67.4 per cent, tightening from 70.5 per cent a year before. Assets under management rose to SFr370.7 billion, up by SFr10.2 billion on a year earlier. Net new assets were SFr5.2 billion, faster than the SFR4.6 billion in NNA a year before although down from SFr5.5 billion in the previous three months.

The Swiss Universal Bank division of Credit Suisse reported pre-tax income of SFr553 million in the three months to end-June, up 10 per cent on a year earlier. The private clients part of this division saw PTI rise 21 per cent year-on-year to SFr268 million. The cost/income ratio narrowed to 58.6 per cent from 61.7 per cent a year earlier. There were SFr500 million of net new assets, decelerating from the SFr1.7 billion NNA figure a year before. Assets under management were SFr207.9 billion, up from SFr201.5 billion.

At the Asia-Pacific segment, pre-tax income rose 15 per cent year-on-year to SFr217 million. Within that figure, “wealth management & connected” logged SFr168 million in pre-tax income, dropping 14 per cent on the same second quarter of 2017. The cost/income ratio was 75.5 per cent, narrowing from 77.9 per cent a year before. 

The Asia-Pacific figures for assets under management (wealth management & connected – private banking) stood at SFr205.6 billion, a rise of 15.6 per cent. There were SFr3.4 billion in net new assets.