UBS Indonesia desk loses another senior banker

UBS has lost senior wealth banker Lionel Yoong from its Singapore-based Indonesia coverage team, marking another departure from a franchise that has already seen several exits tied to the market since the start of last year. The move comes as the Swiss bank continues to reshape parts of its Asian private banking business following its takeover of Credit Suisse and while it pushes expansion in other wealth centres, including Hong Kong.

Yoong had been one of the named leaders on UBS Global Wealth Management’s Indonesia market structure unveiled after the Credit Suisse integration. In that 2023 reorganisation, Conrad Huber was appointed head of Global Wealth Management Indonesia and Japan International, with Lionel Yoong listed among the Indonesia market team leaders. That structure reflected how central the Indonesia book had become to UBS’s Southeast Asia wealth ambitions, particularly from Singapore, a long-established hub for serving affluent Indonesian clients offshore.

The latest exit follows earlier turnover in the same coverage area. Industry publication Hubbis reported in July 2025 that two Singapore-based bankers focused on Indonesia, Lionel Poh and Edy Panggabean, were set to leave UBS Global Wealth Management, describing the departures as part of ongoing restructuring within the Indonesian market team. That report said UBS declined to comment at the time and noted that both bankers specialised in the Indonesia market, underscoring how staff churn has persisted well after the initial merger phase.

Additional reporting circulating on Friday indicated that Yoong was the third market head for Indonesia to leave UBS since the beginning of last year. While Bloomberg’s full report was not accessible through the browsing tool, that detail appeared consistently in syndicated summaries of the story, aligning with the pattern already visible from prior trade reporting on the unit. The broad direction is clear even if some specifics around internal timing remain private: UBS is still contending with personnel changes in a business line that sits at the intersection of Southeast Asian entrepreneurial wealth and Singapore’s offshore private banking market.

That matters because Indonesia has long been one of the more attractive yet more delicate pools of wealth in the region. Reuters Breakingviews wrote in 2023 that Credit Suisse had been particularly strong in Indonesia and neighbouring countries before the rescue takeover by UBS. Reuters also reported that Southeast Asia was among the regions where UBS and Credit Suisse had some of their greatest overlaps in wealth management and investment banking after the emergency deal in March 2023. Those overlaps made departures and selective restructuring all but inevitable as UBS sought to fold rival teams, cut duplication and keep high-value client relationships intact.

UBS’s challenge is not simply to stop people leaving. It is to do so while preserving momentum in an Asian wealth market that remains strategically important to the group. Chief executive Sergio Ermotti said in March 2024 that UBS planned to increase assets sourced from clients in Asia by 20% over five to six years, highlighting wealth and asset management as a core pillar of growth. That ambition helps explain why departures from specialised country teams are watched closely by rivals and recruiters: in private banking, senior relationship managers often carry client loyalty, local networks and revenue visibility that are not easily replaced.

At the same time, UBS has signalled that it is willing to invest where it sees stronger near-term return. Bloomberg reported in February that the bank planned to hire about 50 bankers for its Hong Kong wealth business after record revenue in North Asia, with a greater focus on high-net-worth clients. That hiring drive suggests the group is not retreating from Asian wealth management as a whole. Rather, it appears to be recalibrating where resources are deployed, even as parts of Southeast Asia continue to absorb the after-effects of the Credit Suisse acquisition.

There is also a broader industry angle. Asian Private Banker wrote this month that the region’s private banking sector saw a spike in exits over the past month as hiring slowed in March, a reminder that movement among senior bankers is not confined to UBS. Still, turnover draws sharper scrutiny when it affects a market as valuable as Indonesia, where wealthy entrepreneurial families often require cross-border booking, succession planning and sophisticated capital-markets access. Singapore remains a key booking centre for that business, so departures there can reverberate beyond one desk or one reporting line.