Offered by private banking, DPM is a tailored investment service in which a professional manager makes trading decisions on behalf of clients without requiring prior approval for each trade.
“So think of us as gardeners, hired by our clients, going into their garden to decide as and when we need to grow certain plants, certain flowers, when we need to put fertilisers and so essentially, we help them maintain their garden while they’re busy with other things,” says Lee.
For Lee, putting himself into the clients’ shoes is also an important step in investment decision-making. “When managing money, benchmarking is very important,” he explains. “But there will be these few moments in your lifetime of investment, such as the pandemic, that, beyond benchmarking, you have to ask yourself: what would you do if it’s your own money?”
Joining UOB in 2016 to establish the DPM portfolio for the bank, Lee says that DPM growth has not been linear, with the last three to four years growing faster than the first six to seven.
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According to UOB, assets under management (AUM) for UOB’s DPM grew nearly 50% y-o-y or by $2.3 billion to nearly $7 billion as at end-FY2025, while high-net-worth AUM increased y-o-y by only 6% to approximately $201 billion with $11 billion of new money inflow. With DPM growth outpacing total HNW growth, these figures suggest that the wealthy in Asia — the market in which UOB operates — are increasingly turning to DPM.
From Lee’s understanding, DPM services likely started in Europe as a solution for multi-generational wealth held in trusts or family offices. Currently, the DPM penetration rate in Europe could be as high as 30%, Lee explains. “So for every $100 in private banking in Europe, about 20% to 30% are invested with discretionary strategies.”
“In Asia, it is probably around 10% to 15%,” says Lee. “As wealth matures in Asia and starts changing hands to a new generation, more often than not, DPM becomes a natural partner for them to manage their growing wealth.”
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According to a November 2025 report by UOB Private Bank, Boston Consulting Group, and NUS Business School, Asia’s wealthy could control US$99 trillion ($130 trillion) by 2029, or one-quarter of the global total. With more than 60% of the region’s high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) aged 60 or older, Asia stands at a crossroads for intergenerational wealth transfer, with DPM likely to play a role.
The need for nimbleness
The way Lee sees it, being nimble and able to make prompt decisions is “essential” in today’s markets. “You really need to react very quickly, because the window to react can sometimes be quite small, especially fixed income, as these are traded on OTC [over the counter] markets and not exchange-listed,” he says.
Contrasting the DPM approach to the advisory model, Lee provides an example of a client putting off an investment decision. “Let’s say a bond is coming off [experiencing a sell-off] and we [the advisor] call the client to ask if he wants to sell. Then the client will ask you: Do you think it’s going to go into default? Most of the time, we won’t be 100% sure. We say we are not certain, but things are deteriorating. Most likely, the client is busy, in a director’s meeting, or on holiday and will say, ‘Let’s wait and see.’ The wait and see could potentially be disastrous, right?”
From Lee’s perspective, some clients simply cannot both monitor the market constantly and make quick, timely decisions. “That can be detrimental to them,” he says, adding that emotions could also impact investment performance.
“For example, they [clients] will always sell the winners first, then they will hold on to their losers and little things like that add up in a big way, and over time, that can impact performance.”
From a performance standpoint, Lee shares that his team of around 20 has avoided major defaults over the last five years, including Russian bonds, Chinese property bonds, and Credit Suisse bonds.
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“We always have these bonds, but we are able to make the decision to get out fairly fast, therefore avoiding the defaults,” he says, adding that risk management is a forte of the team while reiterating the importance of being able to make quick decisions.
“We can show by not having any defaults. I think that’s the clearest, most observable kind of evidence [of strong risk management],” he explains. “And I think that is also the reason why we have done so well in the last few years, because clients really feel assured that we are a safe pair of hands.”
Not a blank cheque but investment should not be stressful
Part of risk management involves finding out the client’s risk appetite to determine the appropriate investment strategy. For instance, if a client chooses a fixed-income strategy, the DPM team is not authorised to buy equities; a risk framework is in place to ensure the investment manager does not overstep their authority.
“It is not a blank cheque,” says Lee. “So there are investment policies in place to make sure that we still perform our fiduciary duty.”
As part of a fiduciary duty, it is necessary to identify the client’s risk appetite and choose a suitable investment strategy. “I always tell my clients: investment should not be stressful,” shares Lee. “If it’s stressful, it means that you have risk budgeted wrongly, or you have chosen the wrong strategy.”
More importantly, Lee believes it is also his job to identify the right clients for DPM. “So it is not to the bank’s or to my advantage if we push every client to DPM,” Lee explains. “Otherwise, it is only just for a sales number and after that, you get unhappy clients and from a bank’s point of view, it’s not ideal.”
From the client’s perspective, it is also important to find the right service provider. Lee shares that some clients who were dissatisfied with DPM services at other institutions approached him instead.
He says, “It’s a little bit like when we are not feeling too well. Sometimes we see this doctor and it does not work out. That doesn’t mean I don’t need to see a doctor; I still need this service. It’s just about finding the right doctor that you can have a bit of a rapport with, or you find that they genuinely care about you.”
Finding the right solution
Asked about UOB’s DPM solutions and accessibility, Lee shares that clients typically start with $4 million with DPM, with complex, customised portfolios having AUM above $50 million.
Broadly, UOB’s DPM has five mandates, ranging from conservative to aggressive, with most DPM clients on the conservative side. “Their focus is mostly on preservation and growing sustainably and the reason is that they have already made the first pot of gold,” says Lee. “So there’s no need for them to risk everything, and most of them still have their business where the risk is.”
To provide clients with a taste of DPM, the bank introduced, two years ago, what Lee calls a “unitised format” for fixed income, with plans to launch a familiar option for a balanced strategy later this year. He says, “Because some clients say, Benny, I like your service, but I just want to try first, so they can buy this, no different from mutual funds.”
UOB says that more than 95% of DPM portfolios have been profitable since inception, helping it outperform the peer group. It points out that its Asian fixed-income portfolio and global equity portfolio saw y-o-y US-dollar gross returns of close to 10% and 25%, respectively. UOB adds that “diverse strategies, personalised services, and consistent portfolio performance” have driven a “robust” five-year compound annual growth rate of more than 30%.
For Lee, though, the most important metric is the percentage of AUM growth from clients topping up their DPM portfolio. “That means that they have started with you, and they are happy with your performance, and they want to give you more money to manage that,” he says, adding that the figure was 50% for 2025.
“When it comes to private banking, our main job is to be good stewards and make sure that the client’s money is safely invested.”
