The six-minute animation is inspired by the bank’s values and commitment to do right by its customers and communities. Through three distinct acts, it showcases the spirit of innovation and change at UOB that has shaped the bank’s past and present as it looks towards the future.
Janet Young, head, group channels and digitalisation, strategic communications and brand, UOB, said: “This year marks a significant milestone as UOB turns 90 and Singapore celebrates its 60th birthday. Our growth story is closely tied with Singapore’s growth story, and we are deeply grateful for the continuous support from our community, who have grown and journeyed with us across generations and regions. The projection showcase is our way of giving back — offering a record-breaking visual spectacle for the community, both for those who are based here and those visiting from overseas, to enjoy and to celebrate our shared journey.”
UOB’s journey through time was best described by previous group CFO Lee Wai Fai, who joined the bank in 1989 and retired on April 1. Lee worked closely with Dr Wee Cho Yaw, the legendary Singaporean banker.
“For the first 18 years, I was working directly with Dr Wee when he was CEO. He was very decisive. He knew we had to expand out of Singapore. During the Asian Financial Crisis, when most people were worried, he was very decisive. He could smell a good deal. He felt that a crisis offers opportunities and he directed us to look for potential targets,” Lee told The Edge Singapore in an exclusive interview last year.
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In 1999, in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), UOB acquired a mid-sized bank in Thailand, which became UOB Radanasin.
Yet, Wee would also limit his risk. “He was prepared to walk away. If you are too emotionally attached, no matter how good a deal is, be prepared to walk away if the risk is too high,” Lee said.
UOB’s largest acquisition was the share and cash offer for Overseas Union Bank (OUB). Back in 2001, fresh from paying 10 times the book value for Dao Heng Bank, DBS made an unsolicited and possibly hostile offer for OUB, which was turned down.
“When OUB came about, I had to update him with the good and challenging issues. Some OUB shareholders were not after just financial rewards but wanted the acquiring bank to serve SMEs. That made this offer different,” Lee recalls. UOB still prides itself on serving SMEs to this day, despite the higher risk that comes with SME loans.
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The early 2000s — from 2000 to 2005 — were busy years in terms of acquisitions. After snapping up OUB in 2001, UOB went on to acquire Bank of Asia in Thailand in 2004 and Bank Buana in Indonesia in 2005. The Thai acquisition made UOB the largest foreign bank in Thailand. UOB’s philosophy is to privatise the banks it acquires by buying out all the minorities.
It took another five to six years before UOB had a platform ready to call itself an Asean-focused bank. It did this with the formation of its Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) Advisory Office, which was set up in 2011. By then, UOB had built a common platform so that, technologically, it became possible to add geographies to a regional banking network.
With the common platform, UOB was able to connect different markets in Asean as it opened offices in the main commercial centres in the region, including Ho Chi Minh City. In 2017, UOB was the first and, to date, only local bank to be granted a foreign-owned subsidiary (FOSB) licence in Vietnam.
In 2022, UOB announced the acquisition of Citi’s retail businesses in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. UOB paid $4.9 billion for the Citi franchise. Of this, the net asset value of the business was $4 billion and $915 million was the goodwill. As of August, the integration of all four Asean markets from the Citi acquisition has been completed.
Group CEO Wee Ee Cheong set a target of being the leading bank in Asean in trade financing by driving Asean connectivity and cross-border trade. His bank is already using the customer base from the Citi acquisition to cross-sell products such as transaction accounts and wealth management products. In the meantime, the bank is doubling down on digitalisation to lower costs.
“Trade constitutes about 10% of our balance sheet. Most of our trade is intra-regional and China+1,” Wee said during its 1Q2025 results.
According to current group CFO Leong Yung Chee, UOB’s customers, including exporters to the US, are likely to experience only a limited impact from the Trump tariffs. Singapore has the lowest tariffs, but UOB also has regional customers with higher tariffs.
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“The first-order impact on us for customers who supply directly to the US is pretty manageable. The stress test that we are conducting when we look at the second-order impact and potentially third-order impact, is a little bit more complicated, because there are so many different assumptions that have to go in and how stressed you want some of those macroeconomic variables that we need to input. [Those have] yet to land,” Leong explains.
UOB’s net profit of $1.49 billion in 1QFY2025 ended March 31, down 2% q-o-q and unchanged y-o-y, missed estimates by about 3.3% because of higher general provisions (GP). Non-performing asset (NPA) formation in the first quarter was $400 million, driven by one Hong Kong property account that is fully provided for.
The amount banks set aside for the general provisions is guided by their macroeconomic variable (MEV) models. Leong says UOB has not changed its MEV model. “We are in the process of reviewing what needs to be changed. We do expect, on a broad basis, growth and trade probably to be impacted.”
“The second-order impact is what we are more concerned about, but the very variable assumptions that go into that have so many different values around consumer confidence [and] job security. If some of these uncertainties pan out and stress the economy in that direction, there will be [an] impact on SMEs in terms of consumer spending and people’s willingness to consume in the domestic markets,” Leong says.
UOB net profit for 2QFY2025 ended June 30 fell by 10% q-o-q and 6% y-o-y to $1.3 billion as the bank pre-emptively put aside more general provisions. Net profit came in below the $1.475 billion estimate by a Bloomberg poll of analysts. The decline was caused by lower non-interest income, in particular, treasury income. CEO Wee also said the bank is looking to top up is general provision buffer further.
