UBS has unveiled plans to launch an e-platform for financial products in the Asia-Pacific region targeted at private banking and institutional investors as a way to deliver better investment solutions to clients and maximise its technology capabilities.
The bank’s head of the institutional solutions group, Bryan Crawford, highlighted the importance of technology as it changes the communication channel between investors and banks during a media briefing at a UBS Asia technology summit on Wednesday. Crawford also revealed UBS’s plans to roll out an e-platform for investment products to catch up with the latest technology developments.
“We have seen 28% of our average client portfolio, including direct equities investment, funds, exchange trades funds (ETFs) and other listed securities investing in the technology sector and still they constantly come to us looking for more solutions,” said Crawford.
Crawford also said that technology is changing how financial institutions approach investors.
“The mega-trend right now is how to deliver information and capabilities to clients when they want and where they want,” he said.
The launch of the new electronic trading platform targeting private banking and institutional investors in the second quarter of 2015, said Crawford, will allow UBS “to better cater the needs of investors”, although he did not disclose what products would be included in the platform.
E-commerce momentum
Erica Poon, head of the Asian consumer and internet research teams at UBS, pointed to the rapid development of e-commerce in China and highlighted the recent move from Alibaba, the biggest e-commerce company in China, to develop an online banking platform for investors to purchase wealth management products via its online payment system Alipay.
“This has shown its ambition to become a broader financial services provider,” Poon said.
Poon suggested that market players should always check credit ratings when looking for co-operation opportunities and urged regulators to provide clear guidelines and set certain requirements on e-commerce company’s balance sheets to ensure online financing is done within a safe framework.
The announcement comes on the back of recent moves by the Swiss bank in the click and trade platform space. UBS joined Vontobel’s multi-issuer platform deritrade in Switzerland earlier this month to offer products and prices and open up new opportunities for client advisers. The Swiss bank also opened EQ/FX Investor, the bank’s structured products platform which is connected to 150 client advisers in Switzerland, to other investment banks and issuers of structured products.
SRP data
Investors’ demand for exposure to technology shares has also increased over the last year with orders on the Alibaba stock flooding the structured products markets in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal and France with over 850 leverage and investment certificates linked to the Chinese stock.
In addition, the number of products linked to technology shares has rocketed in China, representing a year-on-year increase of 115% on last year year. According to SRP data, Yahoo! has climbed to the top three ranking of most featured underlyings while products linked to Facebook and Apple shares have also seen a surge in interest from investors in structured solutions.
Year to date, UBS has marketed 4782 products linked to technology underlyings worldwide featuring shares such as Apple (1270), Twitter (1079), Facebook (857). Yahoo! (648), Google (593), Alibaba (218) and Amazon (177).
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