UBS earnings: third quarter 2026

UBS, the Swiss bank that took over Credit Suisse in 2023, had a quarter that looks better on the surface than underneath. Revenue rose 5% on a year ago to USD 13.35bn. Profit for shareholders rose 8% to USD 2.69bn. But a USD 697m one-off gain from a legal settlement helped both figures, and the tax bill almost tripled. Meanwhile the bank kept doing what it has been doing for three years: digesting Credit Suisse. It cut costs ahead of plan, retired USD 9.8bn of old Credit Suisse debt and handed USD 1.8bn back to shareholders through buybacks, and its capital buffer still grew. ¹

Against what analysts expected

UBS earned USD 0.85 per share, 6 cents below the USD 0.91 that analysts expected on average, according to Nasdaq's earnings calendar, which counts only two forecasts. Both one-off items, the legal gain and the loss on retiring old debt, are inside that figure. ¹²

The strong points

• Even after buybacks and the dividend it is setting aside, UBS's core capital buffer grew, to 14.7% of its risk-weighted assets from 14.4%. ¹
• UBS spent USD 1.8bn in the quarter buying back its own shares, and there are about 3% fewer shares than a year ago. ¹
• On the bank's own underlying basis, running costs took 68.7 cents of each dollar of income, against 69.7 cents a year ago. ¹

The weak points

• UBS's own underlying profit before tax rose USD 487m on a year ago, but it includes a USD 697m one-off gain from a legal settlement that the bank chose to keep in the figure. ¹
• The tax rate jumped to 24.7% from 12.0% a year ago, so profit after tax grew far less than profit before tax. ¹

What the company expects

• UBS raised its goal for cost savings from the Credit Suisse integration to around USD 13.7bn by the end of 2026, from around USD 13.5bn; it had reached USD 13.2bn by September. ¹
• For the fourth quarter UBS expects its interest income from wealth management clients to rise by a low single-digit percentage from the third quarter, measured in Swiss francs, and to rise slightly in Swiss personal and corporate banking. ¹

Our verdict on the quarter

A mixed report. The merger is paying off, with savings ahead of plan, a stronger capital cushion and steady buybacks, but the quarter's profit fell short of what analysts expected and leaned on a one-off legal gain.

The results as published

• The results release itself
• The filing it came with (SEC)

Notes

1. UBS's results release, 28 October 2026: sec.gov. ↩
2. Nasdaq's earnings calendar, 29 October 2026. ↩