UBS was the biggest winner of the VRL Publishing global private banking awards held yesterday in Singapore. The Swiss private bank won the a...

UBS was the biggest winner of the VRL Publishing global private banking awards held yesterday in Singapore. The Swiss private bank won the award for the outstanding global private bank and the outstanding private bank in Europe. HSBC Private Bank received the award for outstanding private bank in Asia-Pacific. And Northern Trust received the outstanding award for the Americas. Pictet was awarded the outstanding private bank for customer relationship skills, and Credit Suisse received the award for outstanding innovation of products/services. Clive Bannister, chief executive of HSBC Private Bank, picked up the outstanding private banker of 2005 award. "Our awards have been designed to become a standard by which the global wealth management industry can benchmark itself,” said John Evans, group editor of wealth management, in a statement. He added: “We have set out to recognise qualities like best-practice in financial services as well as the winning business models being adopted in the industry, in dealing with an increasingly complex wealth management scene. But we also want to recognise the emerging new talent in wealth management as banks in regions like Asia, for example, intensively gear up for the great opportunities presented in meeting high net worth client needs."