As banks continued to report their quarterly results, Switzerland’s UBS was expected to cut its return on equity target, while Royal Bank of Canada’s wealth management group said it will stick to its profit outlook, reports said.

The reports come at what has, so far, been a generally positive set of results for banks issuing their results updates. A number of large US banks, for example, have reported profitable results, as in the case of Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. UBS, meanwhile, is due to issue results tomorrow, with Credit Suisse reporting on 1 November.

In the case of Zurich-listed UBS, it will cut its return on equity target by 5 percentage points to 10-15 per cent at an investor day next month when the Swiss bank is expected to announce shrinking its investment bank, SonntagZeitung said. The target will be announced by Sergio Ermotti, who took over as interim chief executive last month after Oswald Grübel resigned following the $2.3 billion unauthorized trading scandal.

UBS did not respond to a request for comments at the time of going to press.

Two years ago, Grübel set a medium-term return-on-equity target of 15-20 per cent.

The Swiss newspaper said Ermotti will not set an absolute profit target but would – as has been widely trailed in various reports – say that the investment banking side of UBS will be cut back and risk exposures reduced. Around a month ago, Ermotti said that reductions in the scale of the investment bank’s risk exposures will be accelerated.

Meanwhile, Royal Bank of Canada's wealth management group is sticking with its goal of tripling profit by 2015, Reuters reported. The division's head said late last week that the target is based on assumptions of a market recovery. RBC Wealth Management group head George Lewis told an investor conference in Toronto that the target of a C$2 billion (around $2 billion) profit is based on interest rates rising at least 150 basis points from current levels, and stock market returns averaging 5-6 per cent a year.

"A key part of the growth plan is driven by assumptions of improving market conditions, and this is the only element of the plan that's behind schedule," Lewis is reported to have said.

Net income in the wealth management unit rose by 14.8 per cent in 2010 to C$669 million. All told, the bank earned C$5.2 billion last year.