A screening of UBS invested assets concluded that only 5% of these are actively aligned with the dedicated sustainable investing offering. This finding is raising concerns if the existing solutions have enough capacity and if it is wide enough, since several studies concluded that the topic is obtaining more popularity among millennials, women and global family offices. In addition, the number of philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and organisations starting their own impact investing projects is also increasing, however, they are often lacking in suitable solution to raise capital.

The taken approach for the assessment of the platform is the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis of internal and external offerings related to sustainable investing or to a match-making platform such as UBS Investor Circle, UBS Atrium, UBS Optimus Foundation, World Bank, the Global Infrastructure Facility, responsAbility, Opportunity Network and Credit Suisse. In addition, macro factors are assessed if enough social entrepreneurs with qualitative projects exist and how the trend of sustainable investing is influencing the investment behaviour of investors.

The internal solutions have already a fairly promising track record of concluded transactions and in-house skills. Furthermore, UBS’ CHF 2.3 trillion invested asset base should provide the critical size in making the platform a success. On one hand, the business benefits of the unique solutions can be seen in connecting UBS clients and create a network and on the other hand to be active in a field that could not have been covered before. In contrary, weaknesses are displayed in the training and incentives of client advisors to promote the platforms. In addition, certain due diligence parts might need to be outsourced in areas or fields where the bank is currently not active. Considering the external factors, the higher demand of sustainable investments as well as the increased number of projects are delivering the greatest opportunities. Also, the fact that such a match-making is not offered by any competitor at the moment. Threats are that UBS competitor have already a wider impact investing offering or can benefit from looser market restriction, because they are not under the surveillance of financial regulators.