Best bank 2025: UBS
UBS successfully navigated complex integration milestones over the review period. It demonstrated resilient profitability and notable developments in digital finance and artificial intelligence, underscoring a business that continues to set the pace in Swiss banking.
Net profit climbed to $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2024, before settling at $1.1 billion in the second quarter and rebounding to $1.4 billion in third quarter, while client assets grew to SFr6.2 trillion. This performance points to a steady franchise health despite the impact of integration costs.
The year’s defining moment came on July 1, when UBS Switzerland AG legally absorbed Credit Suisse, erasing the latter from the commercial register and giving UBS full control of the domestic book. Earlier in the summer, the group had already streamlined its US footprint into a single intermediate holding company, another element of the bank’s post takeover strategy. Both steps kept the wider merger on its ambitious schedule and signalled to Swiss stakeholders that systemic stability had been restored.
Meanwhile, the bank continued to develop its client offering. Key4, UBS’s mobile-first banking suite, gained a cleaner ‘insights’ interface in May as well as a swathe of new widgets, payment shortcuts and eBill options, sharpening its appeal to digitally minded Swiss retail users. In November the bank’s asset management business issued uMINT – the group’s first tokenised US dollar money market fund on public Ethereum rails – expanding UBS’s product shelf into on-chain finance.
The bank also invested heavily in technology. In June UBS and Swisscom launched the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland foundation, pledging to mobilise SFr50 billion for home-grown startups over the next decade.
Best investment bank 2025: UBS
UBS has deepened its dominance in Swiss investment banking, deploying the country’s largest cohort of sector, product and legal specialists to deliver a string of headline transactions.
In equity capital markets, the bank reinforced its leading position by orchestrating Galderma’s landmark IPO. The IPO was priced at the top of its range, with the bank swiftly guiding the sponsors through two sizeable secondary placements. Similar multi-stage support for R&S showed how UBS combines flawless execution with long-term client stewardship.
UBS led the domestic M&A league tables in advisory, securing mandates on transformational cross-border deals that reshaped sectors from telecoms to packaging, including Liberty Global’s spin-off of Sunrise, Amcor’s agreed merger with Berry Group and Swisscom’s planned acquisition of Vodafone Italia. Meanwhile, a rapidly expanding mid-market team, fully integrated with corporate banking, has opened the firm’s investment banking services to a wider universe of Swiss corporates.
In debt capital markets, UBS retained a commanding share of the franc bond market and delivered acquisition financings across currencies for blue-chip names such as Swisscom, Novartis and Lonza, while structuring a sole-arranged package for Emmi’s overseas expansion. Its ability to blend local balance sheet insight with global distribution has been pivotal in a year of record issuance volumes.
Other developments over the review period included a markedly larger Swiss research platform and the rollout of data-rich tools like Evidence Lab, which sharpen origination and market-read positioning.
Best investment bank for DCM 2025: Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank has repositioned itself at the centre of the Swiss franc bond market, turning the turbulence that followed Credit Suisse’s collapse into an opportunity for expansion.
Throughout the review period the bank embedded a dedicated debt capital markets origination team in Zurich, the only non-Swiss global house now offering end-to-end Swiss franc issuance advice from within Switzerland. Coupled with its longstanding secondary market platform, this local build-out enables seamless coverage across public-sector, financial and corporate borrowers – an advantage that few international competitors can replicate.
This became evident as the market hit decade-high issuance volumes in 2024. Deutsche Bank captured an additional 3.9 percentage points of market share, benefiting from both domestic blue chips and overseas issuers seeking guidance in the post-Credit Suisse landscape.
The bank advised on several landmark deals in the country. It steered Novartis back to the franc market with the largest Swiss franc bond since 2009, underscoring its capacity to channel deep local liquidity for large trades. It also served as global coordinator on Swisscom’s SFr1.145 billion multi-tranche financing tied to the Vodafone Italia purchase, underlining the bank’s aptitude for complex acquisition funding.
By fusing local knowledge with global distribution, Deutsche Bank has rapidly become the default adviser for Swiss franc borrowers, carving out a leadership position at a time when issuers are redefining their banking relationships in Switzerland’s evolving bond landscape.
