The wealth management businesses of the bank had varied fortunes for 2016, with the Americas business logging a big profits rise and other regions seeing falls. The overall bank's profit rose last year.

UBS reported mixed fortunes for its wealth management operations last year, with its Americas business seeing a surge in year-on-year profits, while wealth operations in the rest of the world logged a fall.

The Zurich-listed firm - the world's largest wealth manager - said that wealth management (excluding the Americas region) reported an adjusted pre-tax profit of SFr2.397 billion ($2.39 billion), falling by 15 per cent from the level recorded in 2015. There were SFr26.8 billion of net new money inflows, and total invested assets rose by SFr30 billion over the course of the year.

Net mandate sales were SFr14.0 billion, with mandate penetration increasing 50 basis points to 26.9 per cent of invested assets, while total invested assets increased by SFr30 billion. The adjusted net margin decreased by 5 basis points to 25 basis points.

In the Americas wealth management arm, however, pre-tax profit reached a record of $1.25 billion, surging 43 per cent year-on-year in 2016, driven by higher net interest income and falling costs in providing for litigation, regulatory and other matters, UBS said in a statement. There was $15.4 billion in net new money. Invested assets rose by $78 billion during 2016. Managed accounts increased 70 basis points to 34.7 per cent of invested assets.

Across the whole of UBS, adjusted pre-tax profit for 2015 was SFr1.1 billion for 2016, versus SFr754 million a year earlier.

At the end of last year, the entire UBS organisation had a cost/income ratio of 87.7 per cent.

Total invested assets at the end of last year were SFr2.821 trillion, up from SFr2.689 trillion at the end of 2015, UBS said.

"Although macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and divisive politics continue to affect client sentiment and transaction volumes, we have begun to observe improved investor confidence, primarily in the US, which may benefit our wealth management businesses," UBS said.

"Lower-than-expected and negative interest rates, particularly in Switzerland and the eurozone, continue to present headwinds to net interest margins, which may be offset by the effect of higher US dollar interest rates," it said. "Implementing Switzerland's new bank capital standards and the proposed further changes to the international regulatory framework for banks will result in increasing capital requirements and costs."