Weekly Global News Wrap: Credit Suisse sheds US private wealth bank; German mobile bank says they poached 250,000 customers from Chase and Citibank

And UBS plans to hire 20 managing directors for its US investment arm.

From Bloomberg:

Newly-disclosed documents are providing insights as to what happened behind the scenes as Credit Suisse prepared to transfer its wealth business to Wells & Fargo.

Internal emails and witness depositions described top executives in 2015 as eager to offload expensive advisers whose commissions were dragging down the business.

The bank also tried to retain its richest clients and left the door wide open to re-enter the market with a different pay structure.

From CNBC: 

German mobile bank N26, which is being backed by PayPal co-founder and Silicon valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel, has attracted 250,000 users in the United States and is claiming to have stolen customers from Chase and Citibank.

The startup was founded in Berlin almost seven years ago and expanded to the US in July 2019. Like rivals Monzo, Revolut, and Starling, people can create a N26 account within minutes and don’t pay additional foreign exchange fees when spending abroad.

However, the startup faces an uphill battle in challenging the dominance of the Big Four banks in the US, and tough competition from other startups like Chime which reported 5 million users last year. 

From Bloomberg:

UBS is planning to hire 20 managing directors to primarily boost its US operations over the next two to three years.

The Swiss lender is hiring after deciding to narrow the focus of the investment bank on the consumer, industrial, TMT, and financial institutions industries, sources told Bloomberg.

Co-heads Robert Karofsy and Piero Novelli are also tying the unit more closely to the wealth management business and looking to boost cooperation between regions after cutting lower-ranking jobs and reshuffling management.