The Zurich-listed group reported rises in global wealth management revenue for the final three months of 2024. Invested assets rose last year. The bank said it continued to make progress on its integration of Credit Suisse and cost savings programme.

UBS today reported that its global wealth management arm logged a 10 per cent year-on-year rise in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024, at $6.121 billion. The rise was largely caused by higher recurring net fee income.

There were net credit loss releases of $14 million up from $8 million on a year before. Operating costs fell by $14 million to $5.268 billion and included a $42 million fall in integration-related expenses.

UBS said its wealth management arm’s cost/income ratio was 86.1 per cent, or 80.9 per cent on an underlying basis. 

Invested assets slipped on a sequential basis by $77 billion to $4.182 trillion and the firm logged $17.7 billion in net new assets in the quarter, and $97 billion for all of 2024. Across all of UBS’s business lines, invested assets were $6.1 trillion, rising 7 per cent on a year earlier.

Group results
The Zurich-listed lender said that in Q4 2024, it made a pre-tax profit of $1 billion, rising 198 per cent year-on-year from a comparable loss. For all of 2024, pre-tax profit was $6.8 billion, down from $28.3 billion. Figures last year were affected by the integration costs involved in the 2023 purchase of Credit Suisse.

The bank said client activity in its different divisions was “high” in Q4 last year: underlying transaction-based income rose by double-digits on a year before in global wealth management and in personal and corporate banking; investment banking underlying revenue rose by 37 per cent.

“Our strong full-year performance reflects our unwavering commitment to serving our clients, the strength of our diversified global franchise and the progress we have made on the integration,” Sergio Ermotti (picturerd), CEO, said. “Throughout 2024, we maintained robust momentum as we captured growth in global wealth and asset management and gained market share in the investment bank in the areas where we have made strategic investments.”

Sergio Ermotti

UBS said it made an added $700 million in gross cost savings in the fourth quarter, for a total in 2024 of $3.4 billion. Almost 60 per cent of planned cost savings have been achieved. The bank also cut risk-weighted assets by $3 billion in Q4 to $41 billion, or down by $33 billion during last year.

At the end of 2024, UBS had a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard international measure of a bank’s shock absorber capital – of 14.3 per cent.

Targets
The group confirmed it is targeting an underlying return on CET1 capital 1 of about 15 per cent and an underlying cost/income ratio of less than 70 per cent. UBS said it is “well positioned" to deliver a reported return on CET1 of about 18 per cent in 2028.

UBS also said it is “increasingly confident” that it will substantially wrap up its Credit Suisse integration by the end of 2026; it is on course to chalk up about $13 billion of gross cost cuts by the end of next year; cumulative integration costs will be around $14 billion.