UBS sees "encouraging signs" for its second-quarter performance and is proceeding as planned with efforts to refocus around its private-bank and investment-banking arms, its chief executive said, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In a company memo issued yesterday, Oswald Grübel said further details about what the Swiss banking giant calls a "comprehensive turnaround programme" would be disclosed with its second-quarter results, due on 4 August, the newspaper said.

The memo said that Mr Grübel believed the second quarter showed encouraging signs, such as lower write-downs on UBS's remaining risk positions.

The comments will add to optimism that was fuelled at the start of this week by expectations that the Zurich-listed bank, which has endured a torrid time after logging huge credit market losses, can settle a tax case in the US.

"We are on the right path to leaving this crisis behind us," Mr Grübel wrote in the memo, the WSJ said.

The restructuring effort centres on a sharper focus on private banking, or money management for the wealthy, and has resulted in major steps such as the sale of Brazilian Banco Pactual earlier this year and cutting thousands of jobs.

On the restructuring, Mr Grübel was quoted as saying that "we will combine our wealth management and Swiss banking businesses with the global expertise of our investment bank and our institutional asset management".

Specifically, plans for UBS's so-called corporate centre are most advanced, he said. Those include plans to pool information-technology, real-estate and building-maintenance services, and human resources.