Good morning. Thank you for joining us today.

Happy to see all the usual faces. As all of I don't have to say, we are operating in a period of heightened global uncertainty.

Energy prices are volatile. Supply chains remain under pressure, and inflation risks have resurfaced.

These are real challenges, and we are watching development closely. In times like this, customer look for stability.

At UOB, we continue to work alongside our customers as they manage higher costs and volatility, and as they seize opportunities across the region. That is our priority: to be right by our customers.

We enter this period of uncertainty from a position of strength. Our balance sheet remains strong.

Our capital and liquidity position are robust, and our reserve buffers give us the capacity to support customer as they navigate an uncertain environment. As our CET1 ratio first quarter is 15.3%, NPA coverage 100%, GP performance versus performing loans is at 1%.

This is consistent with how we have operated over 90 years, and how we will continue in uncertain times. Now, moving to our results, UOB delivered a resilient performance in the first quarter.

Net profit was $1.4 billion, moderating 4% year on year and up 2% quarter on quarter, driven by our core franchise. Compared with the fourth quarter, net interest margin held up at 1.82%.

Wealth and loan-related fees normalized from fourth quarter seasonality. Trading and investment income rebounded.

Expenses were well controlled. Asset quality was resilient, with NPL ratio stable at 1.5%, and total credit costs within expectations.

Our balance sheet remains strong, with high CET1 ratio of 15.3% and robust liquidity ratio. These outcomes reflect the quality of our earnings, underpinned by our diversified business model and our regional franchise.

Now, let me go through the business aspect of the bank. In retail banking, we saw steady growth in CASA, up 10% year on year, on wealth up 6% year on year, and card billings up 7%.

In wealth, we are making progress, supported by growth in AUM and higher conversion of customer asset into investment. In wholesale banking, momentum was positive with healthy loan growth.

We continue to expand our RWA-light revenue stream through regional connectivity flows, with double-digit growth in CASA and trade loan. Our trade loans first quarter of this year up 19% year on year, CASA up 10% year on year.

Global Markets delivered record-high income in a more volatile environment. We have never been more confident.

Our foundation are in place across ASEAN, and we are now focused on harnessing its potential. As a long-term operator, what drive us is achieving steady, sustainable returns over the long haul.

We are executing according to our plans and not chasing quick, short-term result, especially given the volatile market we are in. Now, let me further elaborate.

Today, we serve 8.5 million customer across our ASEAN footprint, and it continue to grow organically. This scale give us a stronger base to deepen relationship, build ecosystem partnerships, and deliver tangible value to customers.

Over the past three years, our focus has been on integrating the Citi portfolio and bringing everything into a single unified platform. That work is largely completed.

It positioned us as one of the most connected banking franchises in ASEAN, with strong capabilities across retail, SME, and wholesale banking. We are moving into the next phase now, unlocking the value of our enlarged customer base to reshape the group towards a more diversified, fee-driven mix, anchor on connectivity, trade and cash, lifestyle solutions like credit cards, and wealth.

In retail, we see significant opportunities, including in wealth, underpinned by a large and increasingly affluent customer base that is underpenetrated. This give us a long runway for sustainable organic growth.

Our immediate focus is to grow AUM and improve invested AUM penetration mix. Execution over the next few quarters will be focused on these key initiatives: one-bank approach, tapping our strength in retail, SME, and wholesale; strengthening advisory with more personalized solutions; continuing to invest in talent, including in private banking; and advancing digital and cross-border wealth capabilities, particularly within ASEAN and with North Asia.

Over time, our ambition is clear: to double wealth income by 2030 through disciplined organic execution in platform, people, and solution. Beyond retail, our strong regional franchise allow us to play a meaningful role in supporting foreign direct investment and cross-border growth.

One example, Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. Through our green lane arrangement with Invest Johor, we have helped facilitate more than S$5.8 billion in FDI into the zone.

This reflect our role as a regional connector across ASEAN, and our commitment to supporting long-term growth. Our integrated platforms for payment, trade, and cash, and deep sector expertise are powering trade and transaction banking growth.

We are deepening coverage in high-growth sectors such as technology, sustainable energy, EVs, consumer goods, and infrastructure. We are also penetrating our customer supply chain ecosystems to support their regional growth.

Across retail and wholesale, we are reshaping the group towards capital-light, higher-ROE growth, supported by a more disciplined approach to balance sheet management. We are confident of achieving sustainable growth with stability in the coming years.

Let me close with a few thoughts on the road ahead. Macro environment is uncertain, and we stay vigilant.

UOB has weathered many cycles before. We continue to work closely with our customers, partners, and stakeholders to capture opportunities for long-term growth and manage risks with discipline.

We are also investing in our people, building AI-ready skills, and embedding AI across the bank to work smarter and more efficiently. As we recently moved our tech and innovation teams to the Punggol Digital District, as you can see from Straits Times today, in the heart of Singapore innovation ecosystem.

Now, to guide you for this year, we expect low single-digit loan growth, full-year NIM of 1.75% to 1.80%, high single-digit fee growth, low single-digit operating cost growth, total credit cost of 25 to 30 basis points. Through good times and difficult ones, we will continue to be the steady hand our customer can count on.

Thank you, and now I invite Leong Chee to share more in terms of financial details. Thank you.

Thank you, Ee Cheong, and good morning, everyone. Before I go through the financial results, let me start with a few key messages that you should take away.

Our first-quarter performance reflected the resilience of our diversified franchise. It has been a steady performance that we delivered.

I will go through the financial details of each of those items in a short while, but I wanted to highlight that in terms of the execution of our strategic priorities, all of our businesses, whether it's retail, wholesale, and markets, have continued to show and evidence steady growth. In retail, both the CASA and wealth products, as well as credit cards, demonstrated steady growth, while in wholesale, we saw double-digit growth momentum in trade as well as CASA.

Likewise for Global Markets. The third message to leave with you is a stable risk profile with a limited Middle East exposure that has been stress-tested.

Our capital and provision buffers continue to remain resilient and will help us navigate the uncertainties in the market. Lastly, in terms of momentum in the business, we continue to see healthy client engagement and pipeline activity, even with the market volatilities that we are seeing.

In terms of the financial highlights, in the first quarter of 2026, we delivered an operating profit of $1.9 billion and a net profit of $1.4 billion. This was 2% up quarter on quarter and 4% down year on year.

Net interest margin moderated 2 basis points to 1.82%. We have a page discussing this in more detail later, which I'll go through.

The move in terms of the net interest margin is consistent with the prevailing rate environment, but it was also offset by proactive management of our funding cost. In terms of net fee income, we maintained positive trajectory, rising 2% from last quarter.

This was driven primarily by strong loan-related fees, as well as steady wealth management activity. Trading and investment income increased 88% quarter on quarter to $405 million.

This follows a seasonal year-end low in the fourth quarter of last year. This is alongside more favorable trading and liquidity management performance.

Asset quality remains stable at 1.5%. NPL ratio at 1.5%, while our NPA coverage remained at a healthy 100%, and including the collateral taken into account, that's 272%.

Again, I have a page that goes into that in more detail. Our capital and funding positions remain strong: CET1 ratio at 15.3%, with NSFR at 115%.

Next, I'll just draw your attention to two lines here. In terms of operating profit, if you look at the middle of the page there, quarter on quarter we grew 8%, and at the net profit line, quarter on quarter we grew 2%.

Next, I'll focus on the group retail performance. In terms of the overall performance, our retail franchise remained consistent and disciplined, focusing on priorities and delivery across the businesses.

Although the challenging rate environment led to a moderation of profit at the profit-before-tax level to $537 million, it was a continued benefit from resilient contributions from our wealth management and cards business. In terms of wealth, invested AUM and wealth income rose 9% and 6% respectively.

Card billings also grew a healthy 7% year on year. Likewise, for our retail CASA balances, it grew 10% year on year, with the CASA mix to deposits improving to 58%.

This reinforces the strength and stability of our group's deposit franchise. Next, I'll cover wholesale banking.

Likewise, consistent execution of our strategies have led to a consistent delivery of results. If you look at our transaction banking line, it continues to remain about half of the wholesale banking income, supported primarily by double-digit growth in CASA balances, as well as trade loans.

I think you saw in CEO's presentation earlier, CASA balances grew 10%, while our trade loans grew 19%. From a customer treasury income for wholesale customers, it grew 11%.

Investment banking continued to show good momentum. Year on year you see some moderation because first quarter of last year, we had mentioned that there was an extraordinary slew of items, one-off transactions during that quarter.

Overall loans grew 4% year on year, continued to be led by solid demand in the technology sector in particular. Next, in Global Markets, client demand for hedging and investment solutions rebounded following the year-end seasonal slowdown, lifting our customer treasury income to $294 million.

Also, from the non-customer treasury income, a favorable cost of funds environment helped us to capture liquidity deployment and trading opportunities amid the heightened market volatility. Next, I'll talk about net interest income and margins.

Net interest income did moderate due to the shorter quarter by 1%. If this was day-adjusted, the net interest income would have increased by 1%.

Overall, our net interest income remained resilient at $2.3 billion, underpinned by disciplined funding cost management, balance sheet optimization, as well as modest asset growth. I'll discuss the NIM in more detail on this page.

If you recall, our fourth-quarter NIM was at 1.84%, and we walked through from left to right. Despite the lower SORA environment in the quarter, our Sing dollar book delivered a 3-basis-point uplift.

The HIBOR, however, reduced NIM by 2 basis points, reflecting some of the rate dynamics in the Hong Kong dollar book. We did undertake proactive funding cost management both across retail deposits in the form of our One Account, we also did the same for our wholesale banking deposits, and that together offset the asset pricing pressures.

Just one more point on the NIM: the exit NIM for the quarter was 1.83%, we ended the quarter at 1.83%. Gross fee income grew by 1% to $857 million.

This continues to be underpinned by momentum in wealth, as well as loan-related fees. Card fees dipped in March, but we expect that to normalize in terms of spending for the rest of the year.

Next, expenses. Stable expenses, strong management discipline in terms of managing our IT, non-IT, and other expenses.

Our overall expenses stood at $1.5 billion, but this is balanced with continued investment in three areas: strategic initiatives that we are deploying across the bank, technology to support franchise expansion and meet regulatory environment requirements, and third, our people. The next couple of pages, I'll discuss our asset quality in more detail.

Non-performing ratio stood at 1.5%, unchanged. If you look at our NPA formation, it's $341 million.

The following page discusses some of the credit costs. From 19 basis points total credit cost last quarter, this quarter's total credit cost is at 26 basis points, in line with our guidance, 25 to 30 basis points.

The general allowance writeback in the quarter reflected certain migration accounts to NPL, with a lower writeback versus last quarter, underscoring our continued conservative provisioning stance. Next, in terms of our coverage ratios, we maintain our GP coverage ratio at 1%, NPA coverage at 100%, and the unsecured NPA coverage improved to 272%, as I mentioned earlier on.

Gross loans grew 4% year on year. This was driven by broad-based expansion across our businesses in wholesale, term funding, trade lending, and also retail mortgages.

The quality-focused lending is amidst very strong market competition, even amidst prevailing market conditions. Let's talk about funding next.

Our liquidity and funding positions remain solid, with LCR at 144% and NSFR at 115%, both comfortably above the minimum regulatory requirements. CASA deposit balances continue to remain strong, underpinning our stable funding profile.

In terms of capital, our CET1 ratio for the quarter, CET1 ratio of 15.3%, fully loaded 15.2%. With this strong capital base and resilient liquidity position, we are well positioned to support customers through this period of uncertainty.

Our return of excess capital to shareholders remain on track. Our $2 billion share buyback program, as at March 2026, we've done $706 million, equivalent to roughly 35% of that plan.

It is on track. In summary, let me just repeat some of the key messages for you.

Our performance reflects the resilience of our franchise. We continue to execute consistently across key segments.

Direct exposure to the Middle East remains limited. We do expect uncertainties to prevail, but our capital base is strong and provision buffers are adequate to help us manage through that.

Looking ahead, in terms of guidance, loan growth to be in the low single-digit range for this year, net interest margin to be within 1.75% to 1.80%, continued execution in wealth, cards, and trade will support fee income growth towards high single-digit levels, and remain disciplined on cost, but we expect some low single-digit growth in terms of our operating costs as we continue to invest in technology and people, as well as our strategic priorities. With that, I conclude my presentation, and we will open up to questions and answers.

Hi. Congrats on the numbers, UOB.

I have three questions. The first one, could you talk a little bit more, I think at the beginning you mentioned UOB is looking to double wealth income by 2030.

What kind of number we will see by then? I'm not sure which base you are looking at.

A second question, many analysts pointed out to NPA formation in Greater China, which expanded 15% on quarter. Which sector is that?

Is it still CRE, and could you share whether it's Hong Kong or mainland? A third question is that whether UOB is looking to seek access to Mythos, the Anthropic's AI model?

What are you doing about that? Thank you.

I anticipate that all this wealth question, okay? I think over the last three years, our focus has been on integrating the Citi consumer, even though we took over Citibank four years ago.

The whole integration effort is very critical for me. Everything is over now.

As you listen from my speech, I think we will position us to be one of the most connected, because we took over, we have the most comprehensive ASEAN footprint. That take a lot of time, effort to connect.

Now, without all this infrastructure, it's going to be very difficult, and also I don't want to take in the customer if I cannot deliver. I think all these are way ahead of what we anticipated.

I think for this year, the next few quarters, we will start to see the wealth business will be picking, because we are focusing on doubling our wealth, as you say. We will continue to double our wealth management RM, and the infrastructure is ready, and we're also focusing on one-bank approach, because the wholesale and retail, we all work together to generate.

Also, we are strong in FDI. These are all the foreign people coming in to operate in this region.

As an organization, as a bank, the effort is a collective effort that we are trying to work on. To answer you, yes, the next few quarters or the next one, two years, you will start to see we're doubling overall.

Income?

Income.

Yeah. Any number that we may see at the end of 2030?

The number will be great. I cannot tell you the number, but I think definitely it's a big potential looking at our customer base that we have.

Yes. This is the whole bank, not just private bank, but—

No, the whole bank.

Good.

The private bank will be, again, it's a whole collective. It will come.

If I

could supplement a view of that, Tanya, if you're looking for a reference point, 2025 is when we communicated. Use the 2025 as reference point.

That's all right. For doubling of wealth to 2030.

Now, you had another question on the Greater China NPA formation. That is specific to real estate, but if you look from an NPL ratio, it is a heightened NPL ratio with lower NPA coverage, but unsecured coverage continues to remain high.

Right. I think you had a question on Anthropic and its announcement, I think was on 7th of April regarding Mythos.

I think this is something we are all taking very seriously, but although to date, the many of our vendors and key partners in the technology space are still assessing and reviewing actions to be taken. In the meantime, from our own perspective, a lot of things are being done in terms of strengthening our surveillance, hardening our infrastructure, making sure we are working jointly with the agencies in Singapore, and also in the industry peer group as well.

Everybody is keeping each other abreast in terms of developments on how to navigate as that evolves. It will not be the first, and probably not be the last of such capabilities that could lead to attacks.

What

will you have access to?

I think this is exactly what I'm trying to tell. These are the kind of infrastructure.

We want to bring in customer that they feel safe. Look at our tagline: "Right By You."

Very important, rather than I just take a short-term profit. It's easy to make money.

You look at even our deposit growth, it's quite muted. Why?

Because market is uncertain. If I take the money in, where do I have to place out?

If the loan growth is not as good, right, unless I want to enlarge my balance sheet. Is it the right time to do this?

I think P&L is one thing, balance sheet is one thing. The world is still very uncertain.

Even across ASEAN today, you look at Thailand, they have oil crisis. Maybe Malaysia, Indonesia is good, but for us, it's a portfolio that we are looking at.

Thank you.

Morning. Renu from The Business Times.

Congratulations on the results. Two broad questions.

First, on wealth talent, right, you mentioned you'll be boosting hiring. Is it mostly in the ASEAN 4 market, or can we expect some hiring in Singapore as well?

There's quite a bit of competition for the wealth talent among all the banks. How are you going to navigate that?

The second broad question is on the house view on US Fed and the rate expectations. Has that changed from three months ago, and what's your net interest income sensitivity to that?

Thank you.

The wealth space is something that, yes, competition is there. Everyone is competing.

If you want to join an organization, you have to see the customer base, because you as an individual, your connection is limited. You want to join an organization that can help to support you, over and above your own connection.

You look at us, we have the ASEAN footprint. We also have the North Asia that we want to double down.

We have two engine that we are running. Plus, as I emphasized, it's a one-bank approach.

My wholesale, I cannot share with you the statistics, but I have the statistics. The wholesale bankers supporting a lot of our wealth.

What we are doing now is to make sure the infrastructure is ready, from the user-friendly standpoint, also to protect the customer. That to me is important.

Then if we are ready, we are In fact, we are ready. The next few quarters, you will start to see coming.

I don't want to have a short term and then customer are not happy, then they leave to somebody else, because strategically, I think Singapore, you've got to look at it in the medium to long term with the Middle East crisis. Singapore increasingly will be We are one of the local bank.

I don't see our wealth figure is so much different given our setup, given our ASEAN footprint. Bear that in mind.

On the interest rate question, maybe I can take that. Our house view on US rates is that we expect there's still one more rate cut this year.

The translation between US rates to SORA, I think, has significantly decoupled compared to history. We are obviously a lot more sensitive to SORA as opposed to US rates.

As far as SORA is concerned, we expect limited more downside on SORA. I think it has already moved significantly over the course of last year.

If you look at NIMs from our last two quarters, in fact, it's been bouncing around and looking quite stabilized. Even if there is downside, it is fairly limited.

I point you again to our NIM guidance for the full year. We think that 1.75% to 1.80% should be comfortably within that range.

Hi. Rae from Reuters.

Thanks for the presentation and congrats on your results. I have a follow-up on the wealth angle.

In terms of flows, where are you seeing kind of the greatest opportunities from flows?

I would say ASEAN is one of them. North Asia, even though we are not so strong in North Asia, but increasingly we are also paying a lot of attention from Greater China.

The Middle East is not so obvious at this point in time. Mid- to long-term, it may swing some of the activity back to ASEAN, but it's yet to be seen.

I think our immediate is the customer base that we have. Yes, the new customer, it will come.

We will engage relationship managers, they will target new customer. My existing customer base of eight-over million, this is where the low-hanging fruit is.

This is why we are very, very confident the next few quarters. I cannot tell you the number, and we will definitely increase the AUM.

We also improve the invested AUM. Because the invested AUM is the customer base that you have.

We are conservative. We want to protect our customer.

You don't just ask them to take money and invest in whatever. Because today the environment is very uncertain.

I'd rather they be safe. We can earn less fee, but I want them to be safe.

When opportunity come, this is where the potential is.

Thank you. Another question on the war itself.

I know you have limited exposure in the Middle East, but then the higher oil prices are hitting pretty hard the ASEAN economies. Where do you see kind of the impact from that, especially given your focus on that?

I think the first-order impact, I think for the Middle East, I think our exposure is quite insignificant. Second-order impact is that may affect the SME customer.

Far we are going through stress analysis. It's too early to tell at this point in time, because everything is so fluid.

The worst is if it's prolonged, then you may get a stagflation kind of thing, inflation and no growth. This is where I keep emphasize balance sheet is important.

UOB, the capital is strong. We want to make sure we're ready to serve the customer.

P&L, yes, it's important. All of you looking at P&L.

I also look at P&L, but end of the day, I have to be strong first, then P&L. If I'm weak, I just continue to drive P&L, my capital is lost, then I'm chasing after too many things.

At this point, market is uncertain. We want to make sure our staff is well trained to combat the AI.

You can see the government is also paying a lot of attention of the people and all this thing. We need to be responsible.

We need to be socially responsible.

If I could add to that, Rae, your question around our wealth, where it comes from: more than, roughly 58% of our wealth comes from overseas customers. Your question around Middle East, I think as CEO mentioned, our first-order, meaning companies with direct geographical exposure in Middle East, that's less than 2% of our loan exposures.

The focus now is on second-order, third-order. Second-order is more looking at energy-vulnerable industries.

Sectors such as transportation, basic materials, utilities, agriculture, etc. We're looking and assessing how much of these industries and clients within these industries may be affected as a result.

Third-order is a little bit harder because it's a lot of assumptions around how prolonged this will be. There is potential impact on overall Asia's economic growth environment, inflationary pressures, and so on.

That actually requires much further stress scenarios.

Thank you. Mr.

Wee, I took your point on strong balance sheet and you are making sure that your staff is well taken care of. I have seen some filing this morning about disposal of minor assets and there's ongoing rationalization.

Can I take it that you meant there won't be any job cuts at UOB?

Maybe I can clarify that. There was a filing today because we set up a company.

It's actually part of our BAU activity because under our venture management business, we do occasionally set up a GP for managing funds for investors. That was actually something that's being set up specifically for a digital fund that we're managing for a family office client.

Of course.

With AI, certain jobs may be redundant. As a responsible employer, we have to train up.

We spend money to train our people, make sure that they are able to navigate. That is our job to do.

Ultimately, it's up to our employee. Give them the confidence, give them the secure environment.

We also provide them the on-the-job exposure. That is important.

No point to train CPR. End of the day, you train them, you have to put them on the job to experiment.

This is what we are trying to do. AI for us is not artificial intelligence, it's actually augmented intelligence.

The priority is to roll out tools that augments our staff's capabilities, how they improve productivity, efficiency, customer service, risk management, etc. A lot of the things we're doing is actually supporting our people.

As a number or statistic to you, about 30,000 of our staff today have Copilot at their fingertips. We are actively promoting the use of these tools, and training, and reskilling of staff.

Our process is quite heavy, we have streamlined a lot of processes that cut across. Singapore may be better, but cut across the whole region, processes.

I also want our staff to be happy, work-life balance. We are giving them the tool to make sure that they work hard, but stop long hours, more for productivity.

That is our job.

Go on Disney cruise?

Huh?

Go on Disney cruise.

Anyone can afford on that.

You see the emphasis with Punggol Digital District, us moving 3,000 staff there, and they are all very focused in terms of our tech, digital, and these. We've also started an innovation academy dedicated to training our staff.

You've seen that we've launched an innovation hub at NTU in the news articles in prior months. I think it's all part of a continuum of activities that we undertake.

It's a journey, right? It's not just a one-time exercise.

This is here to stay. Two,

three questions. One is sort of what do you see in the opportunity around RWA-light for wholesale banking?

Is it mainly wealth, or is it

trade? Trade.

Trade is one thing.

Trade and CASA. Trade and

CASA, and also transaction banking stuff? Trade and cash management, okay.

Because

liability management is very important.

Okay. You're doing that, a lot of it, anyway, but you intend to accelerate more of that.

While you can see our deposit growth is not that high,

but

we are

You want to have more deposits. The question on deposits.

Cheap deposits.

Cheap, the CASA. Your peer, I may have to bring them in, DBS, they said they've brought a lot of deposits, and they are putting them in HQLA

while

loan growth has sort of moderated with them. What's your view on that?

Are you doing the same thing, or is that

I think there are two parts to the question, and I shouldn't be commenting on what other

Only I'm asking what you're doing.

Okay. There are two parts to it.

One is just bear in mind that our deposit growth overall is in line with system growth. If you look at the components of what we are doing at CASA level, and maybe this is something you should ask others, our CASA ratio at retail is 58%, our CASA ratio at wholesale is 60%.

Those are fairly industry-leading. The reason why focus on CASA is lower cost of deposits, better stickiness in terms of customer franchise, better opportunities to cross-sell.

Those are things that we have articulated as strategic intent, and we're executing well to that intent. As for HQLA, I think that relates more to, look, if you've got excess deposits and you're not deploying it to higher-return use as loans and so on, then do you deploy this to HQLA to maintain your NII versus managing NIM, right?

Our perspective on that is you need to strike a fine balance between NIM as well as NII. Of course, you want to make sure you continue to bring in NII, deploy excess deposits, right, into HQLA as long as they are yield-positive, right?

At the same time, you cannot lose sight of your NIM as well, because that's the overall margin in terms of your books. That's how your cost of funds, and your yields, your funding mix, it all comes together.

Obviously, other thing answers that we had from the previous briefing the same that they had de-risked their SME and consumer franchise a bit in places like, what did they say, India, which you don't have, and Indonesia. You don't separate out the Indonesian market on your first quarter, but could you give us an idea of how that has

Indonesia is still very small for us. I think maybe it's 2%.

2% of our loan book.

of

our exposure. I would say, wow, it's easy to talk about de-risk.

End of the day is the origination. You look at the customer, you look at their employers, you look at their employment track record and things like that.

We are still growing. You look at the consumer, you look at the mortgages.

This is Indonesia?

Yeah. In fact, this is a time, especially the SME, you have to stand by them.

This is not the time to de-risk.

Okay. Fair.

Okay. Who are your customers in Indonesia in terms of consumer?

Are they the

affluent? Higher affluent,

yeah.

Affluent customer.

Affluent customer.

The SMEs are the

We do have more big corporates, I would say, because we have limited distribution.

Retail is mid-high affluent customer base. Likewise for the wholesale banking, when they're out in countries outside of Singapore, whether it's SME or large customers, I think it's guided by our strategic solutions group.

We've identified seven specific industries and we're guided by those industries. Singapore, because it's home market, we are more broad-based.

We provide services across the whole spectrum of customers, but outside of Singapore is more targeted because there's information asymmetry when you're operating in somebody else's backyard.

Just one final question.

Other

aspects, the $231 million ECL 3, what was that, and have you sort of changed your MEV model at all, or is it because of the Middle East, and from the tariff to the Middle East, and could imagine that there'd be a lot of changes, okay? Then, the $341 million of NPA formation, where was that from?

Different sector.

Sorry, what was the question on the NPA formation?

What sector, what geography was that?

I think if you step back and look at our BAU run rate, usually NPA formation should be normalized around $300 to $400 million in that range per quarter, yeah. I think it's in that range.

You can't run a business with zero NPA formation. I think with respect to the MEV, I think we are starting to take some of the uncertainties around Middle East into account, but you also bear in mind that the first two months of this year was pre-Middle East, right?

Effectively, tensions flared up February 28th,

and

that continues to be the case, and we will continue to monitor and adjust accordingly. You should probably expect MEV refresh to be adjusted in the following quarters.

The tariff thing is gone.

Are the tariff concerns,

are they over, or how do you view this, and how do you build it into your second and your stress testing?

It has not gone away, but it has morphed.

Into a war.

Into a war.

That's not for us to comment,

but

I think the tariff numbers, I think, still factors into consideration when we talk to clients and clients need to take that into account when they make their capex and investment decisions. That has not gone away, but it's been, I guess, superseded by

By the war. Yeah.

logistical issues, fuel costs, lack of access to materials, and potential impact on demand. There are other implications now for them to take into account.

In terms of your stress test, has to change a lot within the last year, must have changed a few times?

You look at hair all gray. It's all gray

hairs. Mine are.

End of the day, I think there is no right and wrong, but at the end of the day, very difficult for us to predict what's going to happen. It's very unpredictable world.

We have to make sure that we take care of ourself first. That is the first part.

If we can't even take care of ourself, how are we going to take care of our customer? That is the very basic fundamental.

We have to be strong, we take care of customer responsibly. That is important.

Not every customer we will take care. Make sure that customer with a good track record has been with us for a long time, we will continue to support, because they will have to go through a hump.

This is not something that is a business failure. This is an external factor.

Just to be clear also with what Yung Chee mentioned about NPA, you said that within range, each quarter $300, $400, that's also applicable to the Greater China formation, right? You said that is all well-covered.

It's the whole book. That is the whole book.

Our GP coverage, I'll point back again

to

Q3 when we raised

the

provision coverage and brought our GP coverage to 1%,

and

for the last three quarters, Q3, Q4, and now 1Q, you've seen that our GP coverage remains at 1%. In fact, we were getting questions this morning from other people, why don't you raise it more, right, given Middle East.

I think that blends with what Ee Cheong was mentioning. The situation

started

end of February. We are monitoring.

There's still a lot of uncertainties and the impact is still yet to be fully transmitted through our economies. I don't think we are saying that there will not be any more.

I'm saying that we need to be watchful and adjust accordingly if things deteriorate. Yeah.

Specifically, I'm being painful here, I'm sorry about that, but Greater China, is that a concern? Because the spike of 15% on quarter, is it from real estate, and is it Hong Kong or Greater China, and do you see that coming down soon?

It's Greater China, it is real estate, I think that was raised earlier on. I also highlighted that even though our NPL ratio and NPA coverage had moderated slightly because of that, but our unsecured coverage for Greater China portfolio continues to be comfortable.

Thank you.

If we can't, then open back to the floor here.

Thank you for your presentation earlier. I have two questions, again on wealth and the other on manpower.

The first on wealth, wealth has become increasingly important for all the banks

in income,

including UOB. Is UOB thinking of pursuing further M&A to grow its market share in wealth in the region, and are there opportunities in this area that you are looking at?

The second, on manpower, you've talked about AI. UOB's workforce shrank in 2025 compared with a year ago.

What is your outlook on headcount this year considering what AI can do as you've pointed out earlier as well?

Wealth, everybody is focusing on wealth, right? If there's opportunity, I believe the price will be very high, right?

End of the day, you've got to make sense. You've got to make sense, right?

What makes sense to me at this point in time? I'm not ruling out inorganic growth.

Organically, we can grow. This is our strong point.

Other people don't have the customer base. I have the customer base.

That is a key, key differentiate. The next quarter or so, you will start to see that happen.

The second question is on

Around headcount.

Headcount, I think we are managing it. We will continue to grow certain segment that we need to grow.

In terms of wealth, we will continue to increase our headcount on wealth. Certain segment we can de-emphasize, but certain segment we will overemphasize.

On balance, I would say it's quite stable. Quite stable.

Despite the AI, despite that you see from the newspaper, you are the writer, you say, "Oh, people retrenched," I think that is the last resort. It's a very negative way, right?

You want to train people and at the same time you tell them in a day after you train you get retrenched. No.

It's largely stable. It's natural progression of the headcount and workforce across the year, but we continue to invest in areas where there are growth opportunities and hire people.

Which areas that you see as less of an opportunity? Wealth is something that you will emphasize and add, but which areas that Mr.

Wee say will de-emphasize?

De-emphasize.

Which area is less relevant to grow for UOB?

Certain job, like our call center, we can make use of AI to automate certain processes. I can use the robotics, you can see all this, we can depend less on human, okay, make the service more predictable.

Let me emphasize again, right? It's about augmenting our staff, not replacing.

All the AI initiatives that we're pursuing, again, it's about improving productivity, improving efficiency, improving our risk management, right? These sort of things helps our staff.

With the improved productivity, if you have natural attrition, you don't have to replace at the same replacement rate. We are managing this over time and not replacing staff with AI.

I think the notion that accountability and trust can be replaced by an artificial bot, I think that's not the philosophy that we ascribe to.

Understood. Thanks for that clarification.

I think CEO mentioned that briefly. We are always on the lookout for opportunities, whether previously or going forward.

Now, whether the opportunities make sense, it has to check quite a few boxes: whether it meets our strategy, does it meet certain capabilities that we want, are they filling certain business gaps that we don't have, or geographical gaps, and also ultimately is the price to pay correct. It's not just the dollar price, and don't forget there's also integration cost.

Going forward, do you think the cost synergies and revenue synergies are going to make sense for you? The calculation isn't just about the transaction price, but the cost of the entire project itself has to make sense.

You look at our acquisition of Citibank, a lesson learned. It set us back a few years, but then the benefit is we have the eight-over million customer base scalability.

This is already water under the bridge, we are now trying to monetize this. The initial part of it is actually quite stressing, because we have to use Citibank technology platform while we're building our platform.

It cost us arm and leg to make use of Citibank platform. It's all over, and that is a strategic move that we think is important for us to scale, especially the consumer business.

Don't underestimate that 8.5 million, and now in fact our customer base is bigger than Singapore. It's growing.

You can see that, and people are our business partner, they want to deal with us because of our customer base. You look at Disney, you look at Taylor Swift.

Why are they coming to us? Because of our regional footprints.

People from Thailand, people from Vietnam. That is the power of connectivity.

Don't underestimate that. For me to generate wealth in the digital way, in a cost-effective way, is easier than including our RM.

This is what we are doing, infrastructure: our TMRW app. I can share with you my CIO Fund tomorrow, the growth is 300%.

These are small numbers. It's not that I'm dealing with a sovereign wealth fund, suddenly put in 5 million, 10 billion.

No. This is sustainable.

People can trust us. Every month, $100, $200, but accumulate.

This is where you want.

You mean that there's been a 300% growth in money coming from your

TMRW app? From our TMRW app, what they call the CIO funds.

CIO

funds, yeah.

Few billion dollars.

Few billion?

No, few million.

You can take it offline. I can give you the exact number, okay?

These are all

curated fund wealth management ideas for our clientele that they can access directly from the TMRW app. I think the statistics, we'll take it offline and provide it to you.

The cost, following your integration, because your costs were a bit high these last two years, that was because of the integration, over and above the one-off.

Of course,

but

the cost high because my revenue also gone up, right? Because when my revenue go up,

if I

am able to get the customer base, it's already there.

You're saying, the CIR, the cost to income ratio

There are a few things. The costs relating to Citi, both the acquisition as well as the integration costs, are

all

over. Over, yeah?

The whole platform, tech stuff, all done.

Yes.

As for cost looking forward, I think it's a balance that you need to strike, because we can always manage CIR by turning off the taps in terms of investments forward,

but

I think we are keeping a very balanced approach in terms of continued investment in people, technology stack, and forward-looking investments as well, what we need to build. I think cost-to-income ratio, it's something we will watch obviously very carefully,

and

it swings with time as well as income numbers as well. I think we've guided our cost growth this year is likely to be in the low single digits.

We need to continue to make investments in our people and platforms.