UBS holds $22 billion for Russians subject to Swiss and EU scrutiny

ZURICH (Reuters) -UBS held roughly $22 billion in invested assets for Russian clients potentially affected by EU and Swiss measures imposed to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, including those not domiciled in Switzerland or the European Economic Area as of end-March, its quarterly report showed on Tuesday.

Swiss banks hold up to $213 billion of Russian wealth, the country’s financial industry association estimated in March, while government officials have said some 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.8 billion) in funds and assets were frozen through mid-April under sanctions.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a ‘special operation’.

Unlike Credit Suisse, which detailed tens of billions of dollars in assets managed for wealthy Russian customers, UBS, the world’s biggest wealth manager, had not previously disclosed the proportion of assets it manages for Russians in its wealth management business.

UBS’s quarterly report on Tuesday showed 0.7% of a total $3.145 trillion in invested assets in its wealth management division related to “Russian persons not entitled to residency in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland” or potentially subject to sanctions-related restrictions.

The bank said its wealth management division had also reclassified some assets as a result. Chief Financial Officer Kirt Gardner told a call that it had experienced “some outflow…with Russian clients as a consequence of the sanctions”.

Chief Executive Ralph Hamers, when asked whether the bank had frozen any assets related to sanctions imposed against Russian individuals and entities, said: “Many banks have…sanctioned parties in their books, and we have some as well, but we don’t disclose these numbers.”

UBS had said in March it held limited direct exposure to Russia, accounting for some $634 million of the Swiss bank’s total emerging market exposure of $20.9 billion at the end of 2021.

Its direct exposure to Russia had fallen to $0.4 billion by the end of March, it said on Tuesday. It detailed a hit of around $100 million from exposure to Russian business across its various divisions in the first quarter.

($1 = 0.9580 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Michael Shields)