The acquisition of Credit Suisse by crosstown rival UBS last March shook up the world of private banking and finance.
Beyond executing the details of the merger, UBS also had to undertake one of the most extensive integration exercises in the finance industry, from staff and processes to the roughly 1.3 million clients who will be technically migrated by the end of integration.
The process of migrating the data of Credit Suisse clients to UBS — a carefully planned multi-stage exercise — started some months ago.
This past week, the full-scale data migration of former Credit Suisse clients in Singapore was completed, following Luxembourg and Hong Kong migrations over the past few weeks. Japan, another key market, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The migration in Singapore was done at Hansapoint at the Changi Business Park, one of the two hubs here. The other is 9 Penang Road, where UBS does business.
Some 1,000 UBS employees were involved in the migration, from technology and operations staff to the hundreds of client advisors who service its clients. UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti was also in town and made time to recognize the teams involved, underscoring the operation’s importance.
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Before the weekend was over, the migration was completed, the data verified, and UBS is confident the clients from Credit Suisse can log in seamlessly the following Monday morning via the UBS platforms and access their suite of banking services, execute trades, or tap into the entire library of research.
In short, the money-making business continued seamlessly without missing a beat. Elated UBS staff involved with the exercise took photos with their colleagues to mark the occasion.
“The atmosphere in the office on Sunday was amazing,” says UBS’s Michael Dargan, in an interview with The Edge Singapore on Nov 26. As the bank’s group chief operations and technology officer, he oversaw the massive technology project
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To get a sense of the scale of the exercise, the migration involved some 30 million positions or data entries in Asia Pacific, including more than 19 million in Singapore alone. Without giving a specific dollar figure, the AUM migrated is enough to rank it within the top 10 AUMs of private banks in Asia Pacific, says Dargan.
Beyond the migration, UBS has continued its active bid to adopt new technologies and capabilities to help the bank’s employees and clients.
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) figured prominently. For example, the bank uses advanced analytics and AI to support its client advisors in talking to the right client about suitable topics and products at the right time. The bank has created a proprietary AI algorithm to help its investment banking team research and compile lists of potential M&A buy-side targets. What would have required hours could now be done within seconds.
Also, 50,000 UBS employees have started using generative AI via Microsoft 365 Copilot to be more productive. According to UBS, the scale of adoption is the largest thus far within the financial services industry.
In addition to “keeping the lights on” — as the tech industry likes to refer to the necessary but less glamorous tasks of keeping the hardware and software humming — UBS also has a team looking at emerging technologies and innovations that the bank can leverage.
Besides AI-based applications, UBS, as advised by the team, has invested in various start-ups, including those involved with distributed ledger technologies.
Investing in such new technologies is costly. Still, when vendors paint rosy scenarios of how the technology could significantly improve the bank’s bottom line, more organisations are forced to jump on the bandwagon, further fuelling the surge in the share prices of tech companies hawking AI technology. In short, are users being drawn into an unnecessary technology “arms” race?
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Dargan prefers to take a longer-term view that technology usage is an ongoing evolution. Technology, such as smartphones, may seem so natural and ubiquitous today but not necessarily imagined by anybody years ago.
For one, AI will soon be part of “normal” daily life and not as cutting-edge technology accessible only to large corporations with substantial budgets. “Our world will be increasingly tech-enabled through whatever mechanism. So, I don’t think it is hype. I think it’s just an evolution of how we operate,” he adds.
Dargan, who built a career in leading operations, believes AI is one of the most significant innovations since the Internet. “AI will be transformative to all industries, including banking,” he says.
However, he is quick to add that fundamentally, people are the ones making the difference. “One needs to be very mindful that AI augments the individual. It doesn’t replace the individual. I think the world we live in will be increasingly tech-enabled through whatever mechanism. So, I don’t think it is hype. I think it is just the evolution of how we operate.”
At the end of the day, Dargan believes he and his colleagues can emerge from this massive integration task with no small satisfaction. The scope is on technology and operations, but the ramifications go further.
“I think we have set the blueprint for two global SIFIs (systematically important financial institutions) coming together. We’re setting the scene for client advisors coming together; we’re setting the scene for firms and cultures coming together.”
