Credit Suisse has outlined a plan to strengthen its focus on its wealth management unit and cut costs through simplifying technology as part of its turnaround strategy to move past scandals and losses in the last two years.
The Swiss bank intends to grow the wealth unit by focusing on priority markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore and to enhance risk management across the group.
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Credit Suisse said it plans to save around $836m (CHF800m) from centralising technology, including CHF200m this year and the next, with an additional CHF400m over the medium term.
Last year, the bank outlined a company-wide cost-savings target of over CHF1bn, which it plans to accelerate now.
Credit Suisse CEO Thomas Gottstein and chairman Axel Lehmann are working to regain investor confidence after the bank after the bank has been caught up in back-to-back scandals which weakened its key businesses and led to an exodus of resources.
Gottstein confirmed that the bank will move ahead with its plan to shrink the investment bank and shift about $3bn of capital to the wealth management unit, according to a report by Bloomberg.
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By GlobalDataHe added that this strategy may be slowed down after clients cut back leverage more than expected in the past quarters.
Gottstein said: “In principle, our plan continues to be to grow our lending book in wealth management.
“But given what happened during the last couple of quarters, it’s clearly a slightly different basis from where to grow.”
Credit Suisse expects to double the client assets under management in its wealth unit for private market investments and expand programmes that focus on sustainability and the next-generation of wealth inheritors.
The bank also anticipates mid- to high-single-digit growth in lending to rich clients by 2024, while rising interest rates are set to add CHF800m in income.
