# United Overseas Bank Limited — FY 2025 Full-Year Financial Results Media Briefing

- Event: FY 2025 Full-Year Financial Results Media Briefing
- Date: 24 February 2026
- Kind: automated speech recognition (ASR) transcript, unverified, no speaker labels
- Source webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTNL93-9pLE
- Duration: 54:40 (~7,052 words)
- Presenters (per UOB's announcement, not per-turn): Wee Ee Cheong (Deputy Chairman & CEO) and Leong Yung Chee (Group CFO)

Unofficial machine transcript. Prepared by SMID Research from the issuer's public results webcast recording by automated speech recognition, without a full manual check: expect mis-heard names and figures. No speaker labels are given; timestamps refer to the recording. Not a company publication. UOB's results webcast is the authoritative record. Copyright in the briefing rests with United Overseas Bank Limited; contact contact@smidresearch.com for corrections or removal.

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[0:00] All right, good morning, everyone. Welcome to our full year 2025 results media briefing. Today we have with us our deputy chairman, group CEO, Mr. Lee Chong, and our group CFO, Mr. Leong Yong-chi. As usual, Mr. Lee will begin first by giving a broad overview of how our franchise has performed, the operating landscape we are operating in, and then Mr. Leong will then go into more details on the financials and business performances. After both presentations, we'll be taking questions from the media. So I would now like to invite CEO to get us going. Mr. Lee Chong. Good morning, happy year of the house. Thank you for joining us today. Well, as we enter 2026, the global environment continue to remain very fluid. No political

[0:52] tensions, ongoing shift in supply chains, and evolving trade and carry. However, operating and production in our core markets have remained broadly supportive. Across ASEAN, momentum towards deeper regional integration is building up. We look at trade, capital flows, and cross-border investment continue to expand, reinforcing the region role as a key growth engine. This creates opportunities, well-positioned regional

[1:38] bank like UB support clients across ASEAN. Now again, this background, we deliver a resilient full-year operating profit of 7.7 billion in 2025, 4% down. Our diversified business model remains support strength. Net interest margins, moderated as weight decline, but strong fee momentum across wholesale and retail businesses help to offset the impact, lifting our full-year fee income to a record high. On a quarter-on-quarter basis,

[2:26] trends were positive. Net interest income increased 4%. Margin rose to 1.84% as we lowered funding costs. Net free income was up 2%, but expenses remain less. On the asset quality front, following our portfolio review in the third quarter, we proactively strengthened our provisioned profit. Credit trends improved in the fourth quarter and are moving in the right direction, with MTR ratio low at 1.5% and total credit cost at 19 basis points. Our balance sheets remain strong with higher CET1 ratio and 15.1%.

[3:22] A robust liquidity ratio, the board has recommended a final dividend of 71 cents for ordinary share, bringing our full-year dividend to 1.56 per share. This represents a payout ratio of around 50%. In determining the final dividend, we excluded the pre-emptive provisions of $615 billion recognised in the third quarter last year. In addition to our regular dividends, we also returned excess capital to shareholders through a special dividend of 50 cents per share.

[4:09] Pay over two tranches during 2025. We remain committed to our capital return plan announced last year, ongoing to 2027. Our diversified income stream help ensure earnings stay resilient, even in uncertain conditions. And we see promising momentum in our ASEAN strategy. We see increasing contribution from our ASEAN IV markets across both wholesale and retail business. In fact, just for the information, if you add the ASEAN IV total income is up 5%.

[4:57] First, the group total income down 3%. So the ASEAN is actually positively trending up. Now, let me talk a little bit about the wholesale banking. It's also delivered a solid growth in trade, transaction related activities and deposit growth. For trade, I think 2024, we generated 36 billion, 2025, 45 billion. Actually, growth of 26% year-on-year. Global markets also benefited from active client hedging, amid market volatility.

[5:44] Customer related treasury income hit a record high. Retail banking delivered healthy growth across cut buildings, up 6% year-on-year, CASA, up 12%, and high network AUM, up 6%, as we deepen customer relationship across the region. Our wealth business, our wealth franchise continue to scale. We net new money in flow, lifting AUM to 201 p.m. And the invested AUM mix continue with steady increase. Our digital wealth momentum,

[6:29] this is dealing with the massive low market, actually, it remains very, very strong. We sell more than double year-on-year. That is actually applied through our tomorrow apps. Just to tell you the volume, I think for 2024, we generated 1.57 billion. For last year, we generated 3.84 billion, up by 144%. That is true, our digital platform. Now, looking ahead, we expect the region growth to continue to be powered by structured trends, including digitalization, infrastructure, investments, and deepening regional innovation.

[7:20] We are confident that our large regional scale, stronger platform, and capabilities, we are well placed to grow in tandem with the region. At UOB, our strategy is clear and consistent. We are deepening our strengths in connectivity, enhancing our expertise, and digital capabilities to support the flow of trip, capital, and investment across ASEAN and greater China and with the rest of the world. We are also unlocking synergies, such as through our one bank program, across wholesale and retail customer base, strengthening our digital wealth

[8:08] platform to enhance our services and output. Without strong balance sheet, network, and franchise, we are well placed to support our customer through cycles and capture emerging opportunities. Our guidance for this year is low single digit, low growth, full year name of 1.75% to 1.8%. I single digit, fee growth, low single digit operating costs growth, total credit cost of 25 to 30 pieces. Thank you for continuing to support us. Now I invite my CFO, Yong-Chi, to share more.

[8:54] Thank you, Lee-Chung. Good morning, everybody. Let me take you through the financials update. For the full year 2025, our net profit came in at $4.7 billion on the back of operating profit of $7.7 billion. The fee income for us was at a record high. What you see there is the net fee income number on a gross basis. That number actually came out to $3.5 billion. On net interest margin, I think this is something that comes up quite often in terms of media and analyst questions. Our full year NIM was 1.89 on the back of continued pressure on

[9:40] benchmark rates. But actually what's interesting is if you look at on the right side, the fourth quarter NIM for us was at 1.84. If you recall, our third quarter NIM was at 1.82. I can discuss more on the NIM in a subsequent slide. On trading and investment income, we have all-time highs for customer treasury income. But the overall trading and investment income for the full year came in slightly below $1.6 billion compared to the year before because last year was exceptionally well. If I go through some of the numbers on this page, maybe specifically for fourth quarter, if you look at the operating profit line,

[10:29] we generated 1.8 billion of operating profit slightly below quarter and quarter. But if you look at the net profit line is 1.4 billion. Our expenses remain stable at roughly 1.5 billion. And total credit cost for the quarter was 19 basis points. Next, I'll go through some of the segmental breakdown in terms of the financials. If you look at our group retails operations, profit before tax was at $2 billion. This income is largely supported by double-digit growth in wealth

[11:20] amidst some of the pressures from lower rates as well as market competition. Our credit cards business continued to achieve new highs. On the bottom right, you see that the gross card billings grew by 6%. On the left side, the corresponding cards income, this is net, it's at 1%. But on a gross basis, that figure is actually 8%. So both wealth as well as cards business is demonstrating strong growth. The credit card business for last quarter of what a year effectively was because of our loyalty rewards alignment in Thailand. But that was a one-time cost. So going forward, we expect that to more closely mirror our gross rate. That's the quality for the retail business remains sound.

[12:12] Maybe I'll move to the wholesale banking. Next. On the wholesale bank, profit before tax decline amidst lower rates and keen competition. Our transaction bank continues to power about 50% of wholesale bank's income driven by largely very encouraging trajectory in our CASA business and our trade business. As CEO mentioned earlier on, our trade loans actually grew by 20 over percent in the year. If you look at the bottom of the total gross loans, I think you will see the trade numbers growing from 35 to 45. That's more than a 25% growth year on year. Elsewhere for the wholesale banking business, if you look at our deposit growth as well,

[13:06] at the bottom, you see the deposit growth at 7%. But our CASA portion of the deposits grew double digits, leading to overall CASA ratio for the wholesale banking business now at 60%. So retail's CASA is 57%, wholesale at 60%, overall the bank's CASA ratio is now at about 58.5%. Next. On global markets, year on year, our global markets business grew 23%. This is again an all-time high for us for our global markets business. It's largely led by customer treasury activities from hedging as well as wealth demand.

[13:54] The non-customer portion of the business was positioned to capitalize on liquidity and trading conditions. So there is some normalization in the fourth quarter, but year on year, you saw a 23% growth in this line of business. Next, I'll go through some of the specific financial categories. Let's talk about net interest income. Overall net interest income inched down by about 3% on the back of largely interest rate movements. But it's also negated by the fact that our average interest-bearing assets grew. So at the bottom, you would see 477 to 495 as demonstration of the loan assets that we grew over the year.

[14:41] But it was not enough to mitigate the pressures from benchmark rates. Net interest margin, however, for the year, even though it's at 1.89, if you look at the quarter by quarter trends, third quarter net interest margin, we reported at 1.82. Fourth quarter, we reported at 1.84. The red bar is actually showing the pressures and effects of the asset re-pricing, both because of rates, but also team competition. The green bar is the actions that we've actively taken to mitigate some of the funding costs. And we've also done some changes in MIX in order to balance the requirements of having the right

[15:26] MII versus NIM outcomes. On this page, what's interesting to note as well, a natural question would be, although that's a reported fourth quarter, where is exit NIM today? As of the end of January, our exit NIM is at 1.82. So you will see that NIMs are sort of bouncing around that level already, giving us some confidence in terms of where NIM and SORA rates are looking like for 2026. Next page. We mentioned earlier on that our fee income is at a record high. This page shows that year on year, our fee income grew 10%, and it's consistently across all categories, whether it's in terms of our loan, our wealth,

[16:15] credit cards, as well as others. Next. Expenses. We continue to maintain very disciplined on our cost while prioritizing some of the technology and regulatory investments. Year on year, our overall cost actually fell 2%. But when you look at it from a cost to income ratio, it picks up because income actually fell. On performing assets, our NPL ratio remains broadly stable. It dips slightly to 1.5%. If you look at the bottom of

[17:01] the chart, you will see that our NPA formation has come off from the 800 over million in third quarter. It is now just shy of 600 million. The trend is what NPA is to continue downwards for us. We did have some spike in the third quarter, but it's now getting better. Next page on the provisions. So again, our third quarter provisions cost a spike in terms of the S specific credit cost as well as total credit cost. But for the fourth quarter, this trend has normalized. Specific credit cost is now at 26 and our total credit cost at 19. And if you recall,

[17:47] our guidance previously on total credit cost was a normalized range of 25 to 30. Next on provision coverage. With the exceptional provision top-up that we did in the third quarter, we brought our coverage up to 1% and it remains at 1%. What's also interesting is NPA coverage at the bottom from 100 to 97, but our unsecured NPA coverage actually went up to 254% once you include the collateral into consideration. This to give you a snapshot on where the key hotspots are.

[18:38] We highlighted earlier on that the key hotspots for us in terms of credit cost are in greater China and in US. We indicate here the size of the loans in those markets as well as the credit costs associated with it. So on the left hand side, you would see that for greater China, the credit cost from 2024 to 2025 went from 40 basis points to 72 basis points. Whereas in the US from 173 to 110 is still elevated, but directionally, we have taken active steps to restructure, to recover some of the impact assets in that country. On the right side, it shows you what we have actively done to increase the provision coverage. So for greater China,

[19:25] from 1%, we raised it to 2.1% and in the US from 0.8 to 4.7%. What this goes to show you and to assure our investors is that the provisions that we put aside for these two hotspots are more than adequate for us to navigate any potential issues coming from these hotspots. The following page talks about the customer loans going up 4% year on year, it's stable quarter on quarter. I think I can probably move a bit quicker through this page. Funding from a liquid liquidity and funding positions for our continued CASA growth. It continues to remain strong with our LCR at 147% and NSFR at 116%.

[20:17] These are all comfortably above minimum requirements. Our CASA deposits, as I mentioned earlier on, on an aggregate basis is now at 58.4%. Next on capital. Capital position remains robust with CET at a healthy 15.1%. Even on a fully diluted basis with Basel 4 requirements, it's 14.9%. This allows us the ability to continue to deliver steady and sustainable returns from shareholders. On the last page, I have is on dividends. As mentioned earlier on by CEO, our core payout ratio continues to be 50% as we committed. And this includes the adjustment that we did.

[21:07] When we did the provision for Q3, we said we would adjust it so that shareholders will not be worse off. Overall, the payout ratio at 50% means a total dividend for us at $1.56. The final dividend component of that is $0.71. I would also mention in terms of the capital return plan that was committed to shareholders in February of last year, $3 billion. Of the $3 billion, we have already done more than 50% executed. One billion of which was in the form of special dividends, and another $2 billion in the form of share buybacks of which we've completed a third of the plan. So in total, more than 50% of that capital return plan has been done. And we are well

[21:58] on track to execute on the rest of it across the next two years. That brings me to the end of the presentation. Maybe we open up for questions. Thank you, CFO. We'll now take questions. For those dialing in on Teams, please use the base hand function if you'd like to ask a question. And those in the room can also raise your hands basically to ask a question. We go with Bloomberg. I have three questions today. My first is for Mr. CEO. Why did you revise down fee income growth for 2026 to high single digit from a year earlier, a range of double digit and high digit? So what is your question? The fee income growth we had revised to high

[22:47] single digits. And I think the backdrop of it was our loan growth for 2026, we expected to be low single digits. But in terms of fee income, there are multiple components. There's the loan component, there's credit cards, that's wealth, full credit cards and wealth and customer treasury investment banking, all those are also demonstrating very strong growth. The primary reason for that adjustment was more because of more conservative loan growth. And where do you see U of E's 2026 growth trajectory from here? And what are some of the biggest risks you're interested in? Well, I think you know the market is the answer because we see something that is

[23:40] a little bit beyond our control. But the RCN we are talking about, I feel quite confident as you can see the RCN 4 actually goes six. So we continue to focus on connectivity, we need to focus on less capital intensive activities. Trade, you still need to trade, cash management. So these are all initiatives we want to make sure that we are able to better, rather than just purely based on the loan growth. It is very uncertain, nobody is sure. And lastly, how is U of E using AI to boost

[24:33] productivity? I think he's on top of this. I think definitely we train our 20,000 people, we tied up with an industry expert, essentially, to see how we can scale haven, AI initiative. I think it's a tool, I think it's important. It's an important tool. I want to train my people to make sure that they are taking full advantage of the tool to increase productivity. Have there been or do you anticipate any changes to Headcount due to automation in the workforce? I think certain job maybe you can avoid it. But I think our challenge is, we do have

[25:25] a HR initiative program to make sure that we are able to convert some of these. I think the last thing we want is to check fear to give them the opportunity to learn as much as possible. If they learn, I think that would be, to me, I think that is most important. Learn as much as possible, take full advantage of AI. And we have a dedicated unit to look at AI to see how we can transform that. And then if we hit a certain optimum scale, then we know how to reallocate our people. Make better use of it. So I know today the ownership is the first service.

[26:15] If I could add to that, of our 30 over 1,000 staff, most of them have all been given AI tools at their fingertips already today. And the only countries that have not been rolled out too is because of regulatory considerations. So any country that allows us, we have already rolled those tools out to our staff. And about 20,000 of our staff have already gotten some of the basic training in terms of AI. We have set up an innovation academy to grow out training programs for our staff. Now we see these tools as enablers to enhance productivity, to help us gain insights into customer behavior, to improve service quality for customers, et cetera. It's not a tool for cutting

[27:03] account. So the focus continues to be enhancing client outcomes. It's about enhancing our banking relationships with customers. It's also helping our staff with advice-driven solutions. So that we can enhance their productivity. Any other questions? Maybe Asian Banker. Hi, Russell from the Asian Banker. So I see congratulations on each of the results. I believe your strategy on the driving fee income from the retail side, the wealth side has really paid off. My question is on the trade loans. So recently, during last year's ASEAN conference,

[27:50] there's been talk about the global supply chains and how businesses are moving from cost and efficiency to more resilience and responsiveness. Trade loans has been a huge part of your growth. How has that allocation shifted between trade on the intra-ASEAN side and Asia and greater China? How has that shift aged over the past year? And how has your biggest skill contributed to feel the having a greater advantage in this space? Well, actually the trade loan constantly of 13% of our total. It's not that big. So we are actually working on that because it's more capital friendly. And also shorter. Even the world of

[28:37] 30, this is why we are emphasizing on that. The growth is actually double different. But in terms of percentage of our total loan is about 20%. That's right. So to give you a percent on that, our overall loan portfolio grew 5%. But the trade loans own in target, that 13% grew at 26%. So the speed at which trade loans are growing, again, this reflects our connectivity, the for our sean trading economy, that growth remains very resilient. So despite what you hear about the geopolitical, tariff situations and so on, I think this active realignment of supply chains and the trade loans actually demonstrate that. Why we concentrate on trade loans, even though

[29:26] the margins are slimmer, is that trade actually encourages a lot of other activities that are for selling in nature. For example, if you do trade, they tend to be cross border. Cross border requires FX. If you are doing the FX, then you could pretty much package together interest rehaging cash management. So the broader wallet associated with trade isn't because of trade, but it actually has implications on how we shape the business. So trade continues to be a very active, very important focus for us driving our ASEAN footprint. And then another question, if I could add, on the SME banking side of things, I think you're anticipating single digital growth for these companies here. How is that impacting how you're conduct banking with SME clients? Are you thinking more towards being able to understand

[30:16] that the GOP has quite a whole entire ecosystem for SME clients? I think generally, I would say we are very much market driven, SME customer, because of the market uncertainty, they themselves also take away their attitude. It's not like I want to give them loan they were accepting. They are also cautious. And we also share our experience, our advice, what should they do? And if you look at even today with the latest tariff, from Singapore 10% to 15%, that is over 90%. So they also have to wait and see. But it's something that they cannot blame. So this is where you will be, we are right by our

[31:06] customers, we have to help them to how to re-structure, how to prolong the annual, how to help them to grow. This is where our franchise value is, rather than just focus on ourselves. We take a question from Renong, BT. Good morning Renong from this TBT. I've been here to everybody. My question is on the tariffs that you mentioned and I think in general, we sort of saw the Venezuela crisis very short lived. But how does all this sort of impact your ASEAN outlook for 2026 and the opportunities you sort of see there? I think definitely, I don't have a final number yet, because it doesn't mean that. But the whole intra-regional trade is also irregardless of US. Look at China trade with ASEAN, I think the number seems quite tight.

[32:01] We didn't ask them. So we have no choice, we have to support each other. I still think that is quite robust. You can see from the trade volume, last year we started this and this year. And then in fact, the tariff is even higher. Today, we try to equalize. And the fact is, we equalize everybody, then there's no competitive advantage or disadvantage. You understand? Because now US Supreme Court say everybody is 15% of them. Back to square. There is no advantage to you or disadvantage? If I'll dial back a little bit in history as well. All we said here in April last year, reporting on first quarter results, two weeks after liberation

[32:54] day, and we were like, oh no, all this tariff being announced, what's going to happen? And if you look what happened in the subsequent quarters was, yes, there was some dampening effect in terms of loan growth, because customers in general, corporates took a step back. We had to reassess and realign our supply chains and where do we position our capital and where do we place our factories and so on. So the loan growth did dampen, but by and large the activities continue. Trade continue. The supply chain shifted, which is why you see year and year our trade loans, our growth in those activities continue to be double digit. So fast forward to now, you see realignment in tariffs again. I think there will be some time required for the system to absorb

[33:41] comprehend and react to it, but we are confident those activities will continue. As in the company's business activities, we'll find a way to navigate through that activity. The important thing is for us to stay focused on helping our customers navigate that. The credit costs can be look at slide 14 again, because over there you've broken down your China. Is it Greater China and your US hotspots? So of the Greater China hotspots, what is Hong Kong CRE? I'm not portioned, we don't have to give us a rough double digit, low double digit chains, that sort of thing for Hong Kong versus China itself. And is it all CRE

[34:32] for both those buckets? And also for the US buckets, were you lending directly? Were they mortgages or were they loans to funds? Because you had a financial institution group, customers. A couple of questions, maybe I'll deal with the US one, it's a little bit easier. The hotspots have been commercial real estate. We do lend all those billion, whatever billion was there. Not all of that is commercial real estate. That's our loan book. Okay, the 45 billion and 17 billion

[35:17] is the loan. That's the loan book of our business there. That's not the problem loans. If that was problem loans, we would be no, no, that's the size of our loan book there. But in terms of the problem that we've been facing, specifically in the asset class of commercial real estate, and that's only a small fraction of that. A small fraction? Yes. As in 1%, 2%. Was it one thing? One? Yeah, 1%. Both of them. Okay. Approximately. So it's specifically commercial real estate. And your other part of the question was, are these two clients, are these two funds? It's a good mix. Some of it are to our clients, whom we support

[36:06] network clients from Asia who have decided to operate in the US. There are some who are our global financial institution sponsor clients as well. So there's a good mix on that. Coming back to Hong Kong, I think the similar question, you mentioned about mortgages and so on, we actually do not have a mortgages, significant mortgage book out of Hong Kong. The problem assets again are commercial real estate related. We don't give the breakdown on how much of that is Hong Kong versus China. Okay, so in the, so what is your outlook for, I know you said it's normalized, but what is the outlook for the asset quality this year?

[36:56] I think given some of the macro conditions, I think there is still some potential challenges to be navigated. But that's it. I think we have preemptively already anticipated many of these. So what we see in our pipeline, what we see are the potential hotspots. We have in the last quarter, put aside that $6.1 billion of provisions because we were anticipating some of these. So what I would say is that our buffers that we put aside today allow us to navigate these potential hotspots for us and stay within our guidance of credit costs between 25 to 30 basis

[37:42] points. Okay, so can I ask one more question? You had a small right back in 4Q up with you. Yes. What was that? I mean, was that a recovery or was that a, several check of that in the fourth quarter? And also, you know, I, DBS, there was a right back. Also on the other side, you know, your peer has been very open about how much it has in management overlay. And I think at one point you also, one peer, I know, but you have also talked about your overlays in the past, which were, I mean, you don't have to give the exact number 1.358 billion, but it used to be above a billion towards the 1.4 billion area.

[38:33] So could you just give us an idea of whether it is around there, below or above? Just a bit of a... I think it was thick with not giving that information as we have not given it before, but again, I'll emphasize that the GP buffer that we put aside is 1%. Okay, all right. And if you look between Q3 and Q4, even though we raised it to 1% at Q3, it's to 1% at Q4. Okay, so does that give me enough to calculate? Oh my God. Yeah, it's the 1% at Q4 and, you know, it's enough to support our guidance. So the unsecured portion is 1 over the star. Okay, okay. Yeah, that's actually something very important to note. The unsecured number, which, when you look at credit, of course, there are quite a number of metrics to look at, and it looks at different

[39:22] things. The unsecured number is after taking collateral into account, what is the portion that is unsecured? How much coverage do you have against unsecured? So at 254, we are actually very well covered in terms of the exposures to unsecured. Any other questions? Ray from Reuters. Thank you for the presentation. I'm Ray from Reuters. Just a question you mentioned about ASEAN Grove. There's also been some hit wins facing the Indonesian market in certain times. How do you see that impacting the business and, you know, the outlook for the market there? I think we have to focus on long term. Every day you talk about short term,

[40:08] very difficult to manage an organization like this. But short term, I can tell you, Indonesia, our loan exposure is 3% of the total loans. 8% in Thailand. You know, Thailand also going to hold the volatility. End of the day, I think we have to take a look at the whole ASEAN. Indonesia being the biggest country in ASEAN, 300 million population. There is enough opportunity for us. Obviously, it's a selective customer choice. And I still think there are opportunity there. And the fact is, today, if you look at most of the foreign banks, they already exceeded the market. Most of them, all this slowed up. That actually

[41:00] gives us a lot of opportunity, being closer to the ground, being able to navigate a lot more numbers and faster. Having said that, our focus is still basically on trade, so that we are a little bit more flexible. Unless the customer is good, we are prepared to give a total expression. So the overall, if you can see the growth, despite all this tariff, is ASEAN 4 is actually growing quite well. But we still can continue to grow because we have a very small market share. If you look at Indonesia, 300 million, 3%. I can grow to 5%. Thailand, yes, going through the up and down. I believe things are stabilized.

[41:47] You can see the portfolio quality seems to be sustainable. Vietnam is still exhibiting high digital symptoms of GDP growth. So I think we look at the region as a whole. There are continuing opportunities for us to put that down. It's not like you'll be only confined to it. I think just to address Chania's earlier question on Thailand, not to forget Thailand, I think the stability there actually encourages FDI as well. So it's definitely a country that we're very optimistic about as well. Our operations last year, we had one-time

[42:34] credit costs as well as loyalty rewards. Those were behind us. We actually believe that the Thailand operations this year will contribute more significantly for us. You say Thailand will attract more FDI? Yeah, the political stability encourages more FDI. And it will solidify its position as one of the keynotes in the supply chain in this region. ASEAN is still generally quite attractive. You look at the family offices coming in. They're talking about $6 trillion. And I think these are the kind of liquidity. And ASEAN, being ASEAN, I think is a little bit more flexible. Yes, there are some political risks, but in terms of structuring, in terms of union,

[43:23] I mean, they are foreign companies. You tell me which region is better. You tell me, US, Europe, where? So we are in this region. So we are, and it's proven. And we are just dealing with ASEAN, which is within our reach. It's easy for us to make. If I can add one question, the net new money has been quite positive. Do you see that much growing in 2026? No, I think it will continue to grow. And this is something that the bank is making a big effort to see how we can, not only just supporting loans, how to, because we do have a very strong private banking, our investment advisory unit within the private bank has actually

[44:17] done very well. As I just saw, I use my switch, the digital platform. These are people, like every one of you, the average size is 1000. People put money in, they're able to generate good return. 144% in terms of growth. And this is just the beginning. In terms of number of customers, it's still quite limited. But in terms of volume, so this is where I see the power of distribution and also the trust that the customer has with us. No one needs a Singapore, the whole region. The wealth income grew 14% near and near. So that's where we think continues to highlight

[45:06] and bright spot that we want to focus on coming to 2026 as well. Thank you. Let's ask about coal financing. Do you still finance, do you finance current customers of yours who decided to buy a coal plant? We have stopped financing new coal plants or new projects involving coal since a few years ago. Including nickel. No, I'm thinking of same. Yeah, okay. But it's just because I'm called for the term. So we have stopped financing new coal projects or new clients doing coal projects since a few years ago, we can come back to you on which year.

[45:55] Yeah, two years ago, but we'll come from the year. However, that's it. If existing customers with existing facilities with coal, our priority is to help them transition out of it. So while not doing anything new or more, the existing facilities that we have to come into, we are actively every time we refinance, we actually put in encouragement and incentives for them to transition. Okay. And then you asked me that. No, no, no, I say nickel plants is powered by coal. Okay, so how far down there? What is it? What are those things? The problem is a rabbit hole, right? Your value chain. The value chain, yeah. What she says nickel plants are powered by coal. So do you finance a new coal plant?

[46:44] It is difficult to answer that precisely. So let me give you an example, right? So if we finance coal mining equipment companies, they are not doing coal fired power plants, but they're doing equipment. But equipment can jolly well be used to mine other types of products as well. So do you not finance that? So I think you have to be quite deliberate here. We are very focused on addressing climate considerations, coal fired power plants, right? CFPP. So those are areas that we have very specifically deliberately articulated, but we will do what we will not do. But it's a slippery slope to then start broadening the definition out to any others because

[47:35] you need coal fired power plants to do power generation for power companies. And do you stop financing power companies? So it's hard. So a commitment was made in 2022, about four years ago. What's happened in the US? Are you still committed to that road map to whatever net zero? We are. We are still committed. We are still committed. I think it's the right thing to do. We are facing it. We are doing it in a more practical way. The environment is for the future. It's not because of the regulation.

[48:30] Any other questions? Just to touch back on the AI. Can you give us some insight as to which parts of the bank are burdensome? AI adoption? Is it wholesale? Is it retail? I can give you some examples, but it cuts across the bank in multiple areas. I think what's important for us now to focus on foundation and knowledge layers that we built, and we can then use that to quickly replicate across other parts of the bank. But some key areas of use cases, for example, are in customer servicing contact centers and branches. Maybe one practical example is every time you have trouble and you call a contact center,

[49:18] and sometimes you get a runaround of this person can help you and frustration among customers grow. But part of the problem is because the attrition rate with customer service contact center operators are fairly high, they get yelled at by customers all the time. It's not a pleasant job. Attrition rate is high. They're not well trained. They don't have enough knowledge, and they don't address questions. With AI tools, can you just imagine that if we are able to curate faster, better responses, whenever a query comes in, what is the appropriate knowledge and response to deal with that? That helps us address the questions hopefully at one touch rather than multiple touches. So accelerating that knowledge-based accumulation, testing, making sure the models are

[50:07] correct and we're responding correctly, that's important. Part of the challenge for us is unlike US where it's a homogeneous market, everybody speaks the language in the same tone and same accents. When we use these tools to help accelerate for our staff, the listening tools sometimes misread what is said because of the different accents and expressions. So the accuracy continues to be refined and we need to make sure that that's done in a speedy manner to address. So sort of customer servicing is just one aspect of it. AML, KYC, preventing frauds and scams, anticipating, looking at the data analytics, to look at where there are new modus operandi, how do we circumvent

[50:57] that? That's where useful cases of our AI team is focusing on as well. So just a couple of examples to share. So for the branches we have deployed across all branches. So when the answer is very complex, it's like a state account, it's all assisted by the AI. So it's always with the right set of terms of condition. So it's all deployed. And so you still have a human interface, but the human interface is helped by the AI. One example is people call up to us, so they just promotion rate for a certain product. And the promotion rates do change because we do

[51:44] have promotions and at different times of the year. So it's important to make sure that the operators who are interfacing with customers have the most up-to-date and most accurate information at every interaction. Have you those positions that are being, I know they're like the AI is helping augment function. Have you stopped hiring for new roles in those departments? Not at the moment. I think given the economic climate, I think we have been very disciplined overall with our headcount, but it's not targeted specifically at job-arting types. So you did see, you know, there's income pressure definitely in the macro sort of state. You have seen our slides on cost discipline. So

[52:34] that cost discipline actually extends across the bank. It's not about specific roles. The human cost you can actually see is coming down. But we want to make sure we are able to contain, we're able to train all these people rather than keep increasing. And today you have a situation where as you say, AI, are you going to retrench people? We can be within ourselves first. We train them so that the damage will come. Maybe you'll take one last question. Yeah, hi. Good morning, Kevin from VH. Just two quick questions. I think one is on what's your interest rate outlook, what's your interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in the coming year? And the second one

[53:22] is whether or not there's any comments on the potential sale on UBS management that was reported by Bloomberg a couple of months back. It's a house view is interest rate would like you to cut the view one of the. But if you look at Singapore, interest rate is already overdone. So how much would that, I think it's quite stable and not satisfied. As said management, I think G is on top of this. Yes, I think market is aware that we are. We are looking at it. This is not something that we want to see who are the strategic part here. Because end of the day

[54:11] UOB we want to have a platform to distribute what is the best product for our customer. On the stand alone, scale is one thing. But you want to make sure we offer the best product for us. Best of choice. Yeah, thank you. Right. That's all. Thank you very much, everyone. And I will do today. Good rest of the week. Thank you. Thank you.