What’s behind UBS’s push into the fast-growing US UHNW wealth space?

John Mathews, head of UHNW Americas for UBS in New York, tells Euromoney why the US’s private banking model is so successful, why the Swiss firm is really in the life counselling business, and explains why it has targeted US ultra-high net worth clients.

Private banking is pretty much the same wherever you go in the world, right? Wrong. And every wealthy private-banking client is surely different, bearing their own unique set of needs, urges and desires – right? Wrong again.

Like everything in life, a lot of what we think we know to be correct could not, in fact, be further from the truth.

Take the first point. A relationship manager serving the wealthy from their office in Zurich will typically draw a salary and, assuming the year was a beneficent one, also pocket a bonus at year’s end.

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