Universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) systems offer a flexibility of filtering arbitrary number of subcarriers to suppress out of band (OoB) emission, while keeping the orthogonality between subbands and subcarriers within one subband. However, subband filtering may affect system performance and capacity in a number of ways. In this paper, we first propose the conditions for interference-free one-tap equalization and corresponding signal model in the frequency domain for multi-user (MU) UFMC system. Based on this ideal interference-free case, impact of subband filtering on the system performance is analyzed in terms of average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per subband, capacity per subcarrier and bit error rate (BER) and compared with the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. This is followed by filter length selection strategies to provide guidelines for system design. Next, by taking carrier frequency offset (CFO), timing offset (TO), insufficient guard interval between symbols and filter tail cutting (TC) into consideration, an analytical system model is established. New channel equalization algorithms are proposed by considering the errors and imperfections based on the derived signal models. In addition, a set of optimization criteria in terms of filter length and guard interval/filter TC length subject to various constraints is formulated to maximize the system capacity. Numerical results show that the analytical and corresponding optimal approaches match the simulation results, and the proposed equalization algorithms can significantly improve the BER performance.