UBS to start a digital wealth bank in the U.S.

According to Bloomberg, UBS Group is starting a digital wealth manager in the U.S. in an attempt to grab a bigger share of the country’s market for retirement savings and stock options. UBS currently has about 2 million customers in the U.S. that it calls workplace wealth clients – people with large pension funds and stock options – and plans to use the new digital wealth manager to do more business with those clients as well as capture new clients.

The new digital bank will service affluent customers with between $250,000 and $2 million in assets. The bank plans to build the business organically but it’s open to acquisitions to accelerate the strategy, according to CEO Ralph Hamers.

The new business, scheduled to start some time next year, is digital but customers would still have the option to contact a human adviser.