ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS will approach any possible acquisitions with caution and is focussed on growing organically, its wealth management head said on Tuesday.
"The most important thing for us as UBS is that we grow organically and qualitatively," Juerg Zeltner, who runs the bank's wealth management business outside of the Americas, said at a conference organised by newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft.
Smaller Swiss private banks, which for years benefited from clients bringing money to Switzerland to take advantage of the country's bank secrecy rules, are struggling under a global clamp-down on tax evasion and increasing regulatory costs.
Consultancy KPMG last year predicted the number of Swiss private banks would fall to fewer than 100 in the next three years from around 130 now.