UBS has secured a national banking license in the US, a regulatory step the Swiss lender is betting will help it broaden its wealth push beyond its traditional ultrawealthy base and compete more directly for clients’ day-to-day cash.
US regulators approved the national bank charter on Friday, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal and other outlets.
The approval allows UBS to convert UBS Bank USA to a nationally chartered bank, which positions the firm to offer a fuller set of products common at large US lenders, including checking accounts, savings accounts and mortgages.
It's also a much-needed break for the Swiss bank's efforts to crack the US wealth market, which have been set back over the past year by an exodus of advisors to rival broker-dealers and wirehouses.
UBS has described the charter as a way to gather more deposits and make its US wealth business more profitable, as it looks to get clients to consolidate more of their finances with one firm.
Rob Karofsky, the bank’s Americas president, said the application process “began years earlier” and was not driven by the current debate in Switzerland over higher capital requirements.
“They have advisers calling them in their branches where they do their personal checking and savings,” Karofsky told the Journal, referring to competitors’ branch networks. “We don’t want that to happen.”
UBS has previously operated a Utah-chartered industrial bank that offered select services such as securities-based lending and credit cards. The national charter, UBS said, would allow it to significantly expand banking services, including taking more deposits.
The timing also intersects with UBS’s broader balancing act: growing in the US while navigating tougher oversight at home following its 2023 takeover of Credit Suisse, which left the bank with a balance sheet roughly twice the size of Switzerland’s economy, according to the Journal. Swiss officials have proposed new rules that would require UBS to add more than $20 billion in capital, a plan UBS has criticized as excessive.
Some investors have urged UBS to relocate its headquarters to the US, WSJ reported, noting that US regulators recently proposed cutting capital requirements for large banks.
In the Americas, UBS already manages about $2.3 trillion of its nearly $4.7 trillion in global wealth assets, according to the Journal. UBS research cited in the Journal said around 40% of global wealth sits in the Americas, and the US is home to roughly one-third of the world’s billionaires.
UBS estimates it serves about 700,000 US households, with roughly $150 billion held as deposits at rivals such as JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. The bank has framed the charter as a way to win more of that wallet share.
Karofsky called the effort “about offense and defense,” as UBS tries to pull more banking activity onto its platform while reducing the risk that clients’ primary banking relationships anchor them elsewhere.
UBS has said it expects to introduce checking and savings products toward the end of 2027, a source on the inside told Reuters, with a broader platform rollout expected in the second half of next year according to the Journal.
Brian Carlin, head of global wealth management US at UBS, said the charter would help the bank expand its client base, but added it “would take time.” “We’re now going to go head-to-head with offering everyday banking,” Carlin said.
The charter arrives as UBS works through turbulence in its US wealth business. Reuters reported the firm posted $14.1 billion of net new asset outflows in the Americas in the fourth quarter and a net outflow of $6 billion for the year in the region. Morgan Stanley analyst Giulia Miotto said investors will likely want proof the trend is reversing.
“We think the market will want to see a change in trend in US flows to gain confidence in the turnaround in this division,” she wrote, adding she did not expect that before the third quarter.
UBS has also been adjusting its financial advisor compensation model, a shift that has contributed to the disruption.
Reuters reported nearly 200 US advisers left over the past year to rivals including Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Schwab, RBC, and Raymond James, citing analysts and industry sources.
Still, UBS has pointed to improving margins in the region as it tries to rebuild. CEO Sergio Ermotti said at a conference in Miami last month that boosting profitability can’t come from “being overly popular with people that are not growing their businesses.”
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