UBS banker Michael Tritton has returned to his home town of Brisbane to run the firm's new wealth management office.
Tritton was previously running the Swiss investment bank's Australian equities desk in London.
He will be market manager for the new office, which has been set up under an aggressive plan to attract the retirement savings of wealthy Queenslanders.
The move was a response to the state's strong economic growth and prosperity, UBS Wealth Management Australia chief Liz Cacciottolo said.
"Queensland has the second-fastest GDP growth rate in Australia at 6.1 per cent, and has benefited from the resource sector boom and a demographic shift of wealthy retirees to the area," she said.
"A permanent Brisbane presence will enable us to better serve our Queensland clients and substantially expand our advisor and client base."
Financial adviser numbers have risen from 60 to around 140 in UBS Wealth Management's Sydney and Melbourne offices in the past two years.
In a statement, UBS said Merrill Lynch data showed that for the first time Australia joined the top ten of millionaire nations up from eleventh place last year.
Also in Brisbane yesterday was new UBS Global Asset Management boss Paul Bolinowsky.
He warned his peers at the annual conference of the Investment and Financial Services Association that maintaining fiduciary relationships with clients was crucial in managing conflicts of interests.
"There is a distinction between legal obligations and fiduciary duties. It is the only way to develop a level of trust with clients given we are physically managing their money," Bolinowsky said.
He said conflicts can arise when an employee has a personal interest that competes with the company's or the client's interest or when the writing of biased research is done to curry favour with issuers.
