UBS Chief Upbeat On Swiss Banking Prospects, But Warns On Economy

by Philip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

05 November 2002

In an interview with the Swissinfo news service published on Monday, head of the UBS group, Peter Wuffli suggested that Switzerland's poor economic growth is one of the main challenges currently facing the jurisdiction.

Looking to the future, Mr Wuffli told Swissinfo that: 'Unfortunately, the news flow has been consistently negative over the past several months. There is relatively little positive news out there and therefore most economists are revising downwards their expectations for growth. We do not see any major recession but we are also not very optimistic about a very fast recovery, so we may see stagnation for quite some time.'

Questioned as to whether Switzerland's advantages as a financial safe haven have been eroded by the development of other stable and efficient centres elsewhere in the world, the UBS chief observed that:

'Just to be precise, Switzerland's quality has not eroded but it is true that other countries have improved. In the post-war environment, many European countries didn't have free capital flows and had a very limited array of products.'

However, he concluded that: 'I'm very confident that we continue to enjoy a very substantial edge based on our tradition, our very strong market position in international private banking, as well as the fact we have traditionally been very international and globally oriented as a small country, and global investing is one of the key challenges for any...wealth management firm.'

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