UBS' Amy Lo Bullish on Growing Greater Bay Area Wealth
UBS is doubling down on the Greater Bay Area, an 11-city cluster in southern China. In a conversation with finews.asia, Amy Lo spoke about its growing role in the wealth business, accounting for a sizeable portion of overall assets in APAC.
In the first half of 2025, total invested assets at UBS across its wealth and asset management divisions surpassed $1 trillion in Asia Pacific for the first time ever. The wealth business specifically accounted for $746 billion with 6.4 percent year-on-year growth in net new assets – the highest amongst all regions worldwide – to reach $11.1 billion.
Within APAC, Hong Kong has been a key contributor, according to Amy Lo, Asia global wealth management chair and Hong Kong CEO. She highlighted that the Greater China franchise, including Hong Kong clients as well as offshore clients from mainland China and Taiwan, accounted for over half of Asia's net new money as well as the $348 million in profit before tax. Year-to-date, the bank has also hired 50 client advisors in the city.
«Hong Kong is coming back,» Lo told finews.asia on the sidelines of its 11th UBS Disruptive Technology CEO Summit. «We are seeing high double-digit growth in transactional activity. The city is ranked at the top of the IPO league table with another 230 companies having submitted listing applications.»
Doubling Down on GBA
Within Greater China, Lo is especially bullish on the Greater Bay Area (GBA) – an 11-city cluster in southern China that includes Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen. Of the total APAC assets in wealth management, GBA accounts for one-third.
Proof of its commitment to GBA is the bank’s decision to move to a new Hong Kong office in early 2026, shifting from the city’s traditional business district in Central to a 14-floor space in West Kowloon that is strategically located to take advantage of connectivity to the broader sub-region.
«From our new offices, it will take three minutes to reach the high-speed train station and 14 minutes to Shenzhen before connecting to the whole GBA which has a GDP of $2 trillion,» Lo explained.
Broader Diversification of Markets
Aside from Greater China, the bank is seeing gains from other markets such as Japan, Australia and, notably South and Southeast Asia, which was previously a strong foothold for Credit Suisse. Beyond Asia, UBS is also developing strategic corridors from the region to the Middle East, the US and Switzerland. In the latter market, the bank has a 100-strong APAC team with 60 staff who can speak Mandarin.
«In this environment, clients are looking for diversification and multi-shoring,» Lo noted.
Post-Merger Client Feedback
In addition to the complementary strengths of Credit Suisse, Lo said that clients in Asia have been generally positive about the enlarged post-merger UBS, which is the first region globally to have migrated clients across all its business divisions at the end of 2024, including wealth management, investment banking and asset management.
«In Asia, clients appreciate size and scale,» Lo shared, underlining the bank’s expanded offering in products, services, content and more. «Asian clients are very pragmatic. If you can offer more, they will follow you.»
