UBS reported $3.04 billion in net profit attributable to shareholders for the first quarter of 2026 on April 29, an 80% jump from the same quarter a year earlier and a result that pushed the Swiss bank’s shares up roughly 5% on the day. Global Wealth Management generated $37.4 billion in net new assets at a 3.1% annualized growth rate, and revenue in the division climbed 11% to $7.1 billion. On the integration side, Sergio Ermotti confirmed that the final tranche of Swiss-booked Credit Suisse client accounts, approximately 1.2 million relationships, completed migration to UBS systems in March 2026. The mechanical phase of the Credit Suisse acquisition that has consumed three years of senior management bandwidth is now substantially behind the bank.
The headline matters because every wealth management competitor measures itself against the UBS franchise, and the Q1 2026 print resolves two open questions in one report. The first is whether the Credit Suisse business retained any meaningful net new money once the legacy clients were given the choice to consolidate or leave. The second is whether the legal-entity merger and IT migration would derail organic asset gathering. The $37.4 billion quarterly NNA figure answers both. UBS reported net inflows across all GWM regions, with the Americas and Asia Pacific each contributing positively despite the operational disruption.
Key takeaways
- UBS Q1 2026 net profit attributable to shareholders reached $3.04 billion, an 80% year-over-year increase, with total revenues up 13% to $14.2 billion.
- Global Wealth Management posted $37.4 billion in net new assets (3.1% annualized growth), with revenue up 11% to $7.1 billion and invested assets at $4.66 trillion.
- Asset Management reported $14 billion in net new money ($13.8 billion ex-money-market) and invested assets of $2.06 trillion.
- The March 2026 completion of the Swiss-booked Credit Suisse client migration moved approximately 1.2 million client relationships onto UBS infrastructure.
- Cumulative gross cost savings reached approximately $10.7 billion at year-end 2025, against the $13.5 billion target Sergio Ermotti reaffirmed for the close of 2026.
- The EMEA wealth management leadership change announced May 21 (Bloomberg), with head Christl Novakovic relocating to the Middle East, signals that capital deployment is shifting toward the Gulf wealth corridor where UBS has been hiring aggressively against JPMorgan Private Bank and Goldman Sachs.
What’s actually behind the $37.4B NNA number?
Wealth managers report net new money on a basis that includes interest income, dividends, and certain product flows that are not strictly new client assets. Comparisons across firms therefore require translating reported NNA into something closer to organic asset gathering. On UBS’s own definition, the $37.4 billion figure for Q1 2026 represents money that came into GWM accounts net of money that left and is the cleanest single signal investors will get on whether the franchise is healthy three years into the Credit Suisse work.
The Q1 2026 number sits inside a credible trend. UBS reported $32.0 billion of GWM NNA in Q4 2025, $25 billion in Q3 2025, and $24.3 billion in Q2 2025, per the firm’s quarterly disclosures. The Q1 2026 step-up suggests two things. First, the Q1 calendar effect (the highest-NNA quarter for most private banks because new tax-year contributions and bonus deployments are concentrated in January through March) reasserted itself. Second, attrition from the Credit Suisse legacy book has decelerated as the migration moved into its final stage.
Iqbal Khan, who became Co-President Global Wealth Management in 2024, has been explicit that the GWM target is roughly $100 billion in annual NNA at scale. The Q1 2026 print annualizes to $149.6 billion, well above target, though Q1 is structurally the highest of the four quarters. A more honest read is that GWM is now tracking to the $90 to $110 billion range for full-year 2026, which would represent the franchise’s strongest organic year since the 2023 Credit Suisse acquisition closed.
How does $7.1B in GWM revenue change the wealth league table?
The $7.1 billion GWM revenue figure for Q1 2026, up $684 million or 11% year-over-year, moves UBS materially ahead of the U.S. wirehouse and money-center wealth franchises on a quarterly comparison basis. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management posted $8.5 billion in Q1 2026 revenue per our Q1 2026 private banking league table, but the gap to UBS narrowed by roughly $250 million quarter-over-quarter. JPMorgan’s Private Bank generated $6.4 billion in the same quarter. Bank of America Private Bank posted $6.7 billion. Goldman Sachs Wealth Management reported $4.08 billion.
The composition matters more than the absolute number. UBS GWM revenue gains came across all three categories: recurring net fee income (the highest-quality stream and the one that compounds with invested asset growth), transaction-based income, and net interest income. The transaction-based component reflects elevated activity in alternatives, structured products, and discretionary mandates, which is consistent with what asset managers including BlackRock, Apollo, and KKR have flagged in their own Q1 2026 reporting on wealth-channel flows.
The recurring fee component is the more important read for the next four quarters. UBS GWM invested assets stand at $4.66 trillion at quarter-end, down $85 billion sequentially, a function of market depreciation more than client attrition. Every basis point of fee compression in the discretionary mandate book translates to roughly $466 million in annualized revenue at risk. The fact that UBS held the fee line in Q1 2026 against a backdrop of escalating competition from Vanguard, Fidelity, and the U.S. RIA channel is a meaningful signal that the upper-tier private banking value proposition still defends pricing in the $25 million-plus relationship segment.
What does completing the Credit Suisse migration unlock?
The March 2026 completion of the Swiss-booked client migration matters less for what it does to UBS than for what it stops doing to UBS. Ermotti characterized the milestone in the Q1 2026 release as “another crucial milestone in one of the most complex integrations in banking history.” Practitioner reads from finews.com and family wealth report attribute four near-term operational consequences.
Senior management bandwidth. With the IT migration off the executive committee’s weekly agenda, the conversation rotates to organic growth investments: the U.S. wealth business, the Asia Pacific expansion (where Iqbal Khan also serves as President), and the Middle East buildout reflected in the May 21 EMEA leadership reshuffle.
Cost guidance becomes more credible. UBS booked $10.7 billion in cumulative gross cost savings at year-end 2025, ahead of the $10 billion guidance the firm had given for that point. The $13.5 billion target Ermotti reaffirmed for the close of 2026 now has a clearer path. CTOL Digital Solutions reported in 2025 that approximately $4.6 billion in additional cost savings depended specifically on completing the Swiss IT migration, which is the work that just closed.
Client experience parity. The migration ends a two-year period in which legacy Credit Suisse clients in Switzerland were running on a parallel platform with limited access to the full UBS product shelf. The Q2 and Q3 2026 quarters should see the first clean reads on whether the cross-sell potential the original deal logic projected is going to materialize.
Regulatory headroom. Switzerland’s Federal Council proposed in April 2026 to raise UBS’s capital requirements by $26 billion. Ermotti pushed back publicly in the Q1 release, arguing the rule would make the bank a less competitive global wealth franchise. The political fight over Swiss capital rules will now move from a backdrop conversation to the front of the bank’s 2026 to 2027 strategic agenda, and the success or failure of the post-migration earnings ramp is what will determine UBS’s negotiating leverage with FINMA and the Swiss government.
What competing private banks should be watching
The Q1 2026 print sets a benchmark that puts pressure on every major wealth franchise. Morgan Stanley’s Q1 2026 wealth management business needs to defend its $8.5 billion revenue base against a UBS competitor that has now finished its restructuring and can fully redeploy management attention to client acquisition. JPMorgan Private Bank, which has been aggressive in U.S. ultra-HNW hiring per our Wells Fargo $7.5B Morgan Stanley recruiting wave coverage, faces a UBS franchise that can now match recruiting packages without the integration optics problem.
The Middle East signal in the May 21 EMEA leadership change is the underappreciated read. UBS shifting its EMEA wealth head to the Gulf, combined with Goldman Sachs’s expansion in Abu Dhabi and JPMorgan Private Bank’s Dubai buildout, points to a multi-firm migration of senior wealth management capacity to the region. The intra-GCC ultra-HNW client base has grown faster than any other regional pool over the past five years, and the firms that are moving headcount now are moving with the asset growth.
Three questions advisors should be asking after this print
- Where exactly is the marginal Q1 2026 NNA coming from for UBS? Is it U.S. ultra-HNW recruits switching from Morgan Stanley, Asia Pacific gain share from local private banks, or Middle East family office allocations? The mix tells you which competitors are actually losing and which are quietly defending.
- What does the cost guidance trajectory imply for fee competitiveness in 2027? If UBS closes the year at $13.5 billion in cumulative savings, the franchise has more room to compete on price in discretionary mandates than any U.S. competitor in the $25M-plus segment.
- How fast can the post-migration cross-sell on the legacy Credit Suisse book actually move? The bull case on the entire Credit Suisse deal turns on this number, and Q2 and Q3 2026 will be the first quarters with clean data.
For related coverage, see the Q1 2026 private banking league table and the Wells Fargo $7.5B Morgan Stanley recruiting wave.
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