UBS has reported it made a 2 billion Swiss francs loss during January and March of this year.

Swiss bank UBS has today (5 May) confirmed a first quarter loss of 2 billion Swiss francs (£1.2bn).

UBS has attributed the losses primarily to risky investments that the bank has now exited or is in the process of exiting.

Cost reduction measures are already underway at the investment bank, which announced 8,700 job losses in April this year. In total, the cost cuts are expected to reduce operating expenses by 3.5bn to 4bn Swiss francs by the end of 2010.

The first quarter results are however an improvement on the fourth quarter of 2008, when UBS reported a loss of 9.56bn Swiss francs.

Despite the improvement, UBS is remaining cautious about the bank’s immediate future as “the markets continue to be unsettled”.

In a statement, UBS said: “The strong influence that government policy has on the market environment was clearly demonstrated in the first quarter as investors became less risk averse.

“However, the real economy has continued to deteriorate, and this is expected to have negative implications for credit-related provisioning in coming quarters.”