UBS Investment Bank Reports 5% Uptick in Operating Income YoY

UBS has reported its financial results for the full year of 2018, revealing a slight uptick in operating profit for the multinational financial services and investment banking firm.
Taking a look at the results, the Swiss bank managed to achieve an operating income of $30.2 billion. When measured against the previous year, which reported an operating income of $29.6 billion, this is up by around 2 per cent.

Operating expenses in 2018 actually fell on a year-on-year comparison, however, the decline was margin. Specifically, it fell from the $24.3 billion reported in 2017 by 0.2 per cent to reach $24.2 billion last year.
Taking a look at UBS’ investment bank, which during 2018 was one of the best performing segments for the Swiss bank. As , the investment banking unit drove solid performances in both the second and , with both periods beating market expectations as a result.
For the whole of 2018, UBS’ investment bank achieved a total operating income of $8.15 billion. This is higher by 5 per cent when compared against 2017, which had an operating income of $7.79 billion.
During the year, the sector managed to reduce its operating expenses ever-so-slightly, lowering the costs by 0.4 per cent from $6.53 billion in 2017 to $6.5 billion in 2018.
Moving on to the Investor Client Services section of the investment bank, foreign exchange (forex), rates and credits generated an income of $1.63 billion. This represents an uptick of 16 per cent when compared with the previous year.
Equities were also up on an annual comparison, climbing from $3.6 billion in 2017 to $3.9 billion in 2018. As a percentage, this represents a growth of 9 per cent.
UBS is Fined by a Number of Financial Regulators
The overall positive results for 2018 announced today, come just one day after the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced that it has fined the Swiss bank HKD 375 million ($47.8 million).
As , the Hong Kong regulator said that UBS’ local subsidiaries failed to “discharge their obligations” with regard to the initial public offerings of three companies – China Forestry Holdings, the Tianhe Chemicals Group and one unnamed firm.
Towards the end of February, , this time by French Authorities, for tax fraud. A court in Paris found that the firm had helped French citizens evade tax, totalling billions of euros, from 2004 to 2012.
Alongside the fine, which amounted to €3.7 billion ($4.2 billion), the investment bank will also have to pay €800 million in “damages” to the French state.