Growth in Assets Set to Slow for Money Managers in Switzerland
Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — The rate of growth in the money managed in Switzerland is set to slow over the next three years amid growing competition from Asia and probes into tax avoidance.
Assets will increase at an average rate of 2.8 percent a year until 2018, bringing the total to about 3.54 trillion Swiss francs ($3.75 trillion), according to estimates by the Boston Consulting Group and the Swiss Bankers’ Association. That’s down from a 5.1 percent average annual rate of growth from 2010 to 2013, the study showed.
Private banking generates about half of the Swiss banking industry’s gross revenue, the study said. The country is home to six of the world’s 25 biggest banks as measured by assets under management, according to Scorpio Partnership. UBS AG, the country’s biggest bank, is the world’s biggest wealth manager, with Credit Suisse Group AG, its second-biggest, the world’s No. 4.
“Private banking will have to come to terms with rising complexity in future,” according to the study. The growing number of regulations “are resulting in uncertainty, rising costs and consolidation with regard to the number of banking institutions and the number of markets they operate in.”
The nation will still remain the biggest destination for foreign clients’ money globally, with 68 percent of assets being managed for overseas customers, according to the report.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeffrey Vögeli in Zurich at jvogeli@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elisa Martinuzzi at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net Edward Evans, Cindy Roberts
