International markets are on the verge of shifting from being driven by policy makers to businesses and consumers, an investment research leader from UBS told the Charity Finance Summit today.

Speaking to delegates at the Charity Investment Conference, part of the Charity Finance Summit, today Bill O'Neill, managing director and head of chief investment office, wealth management research UK, UBS AG, outlined his cautiously optimistic view of the world economy in the coming year.

He said: “We have moved on to some degree from the financial crisis in the last 18 months.” But that “at the same time economic progress and development is very much dependent on policy drivers”.

O'Neill explained: “It looks now as though all the developed markets are beginning to grow at the same time – and that is the first time that's happened since 2010.”

He said: “Our sense is that we're moving from something that is less policy-induced to something that is more, what we describe in the industry as endogenous, within the system – driven by the demands of consumers and business.”

But he warned that “there are some question marks over emerging markets” like China, which he predicted would see a fall in growth rates and that the US remained the “pre-eminent economy”.

On Europe, O'Neill predicted the recovery to be “slow but sustained” and with “little chance of falling back”.

In the UK, O'Neill warned that the high level of inflation was of “some concern” and unlikely to fall below 2 per cent in the next two years. He added that the economic revival was being driven by “consumer spending rather than an a reliance on exports”.