United Overseas Bank Limited (U11) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

May 6, 2021

Singapore Exchange SG Financials Banks trading_statement 47 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#1

Good morning, and thank you for joining us, and we hope everyone is safe and healthy. Now since all of you are reporters, I have 4 message for you today. Message one. Strong start to 2021, delivering our promise. The bank, we had a strong start to 2021. First quarter net profit surged 46% to SGD 1 billion, supported by recovery in our key franchise markets. Our return on equity recovered to 10.2%. Income growth was broad-based, reaching pre COVID levels at SGD 2.5 billion. Loans grew 4% while net interest margin held steady. Fee income hit a record high from diversified drivers, including wealth management, loans related and investment banking activities. Our portfolio remains resilient and well secured. Even as relief, measures are tapering off. The impact to our book is manageable. Having proactively set aside sizable provision in 2020, our total credit costs almost half. Message 2, growth driven by economic recovery backed by our franchise and capabilities. The robust growth was driven by recovery of economic flows in our key markets. Starting with Singapore and Greater China, which have been able to contain the local community cases more effectively. As China rebound strongly from the pandemic, most of Asia is set to benefit. Our wholesale banking business registered a record quarterly performance, backed by improved sentiment, business activities picking up and commodity trade flows resuming between ASEAN and Greater China. In particular, we are seeing strong credit demand by large corporate and institutional clients, diversifying and deepening their footprint across our key markets. In our home market, Singapore, UOB has been active in the privatization space with a market-leading position. Since 2020, we have advised 8 public takeover deals and provided acquisition-related financing as part of our holistic offering to our customers. We are able to ride the recovery wave with our customers, with our established network and connectivity, deep sectorial insights and local expertise. We expect the growth momentum to continue and cross-border activities to increase and to be extended to other ASEAN markets, possibly in second half this year or 2022, as countries speed up their vaccination drive. We see governments in this region ramping up infrastructure projects to kick start economies. These present opportunities. Our team and resources stand ready to support customers as they emerge from the pandemic. Our healthy balance sheet and franchise, through years of investment, enable us to support customers through progressive, timely solutions. Not just for businesses, but individual customers, especially in the wealth management space, where we also saw a record quarterly performance with AUM reaching a new high. Message 3. ESG embedded in all we do, advancing our sustainability strategy. As a responsible financial steward, we embed ESG considerations into our business strategies supporting customers' financing and investment needs. And we are making good progress in our sustainability journey. Research indicates the potential of USD 1 trillion in annual economic opportunities in Southeast Asia as the region transitions to a green economy. As long-term player in this region, we see our role as a catalyst and enabler in supporting our customers as they future-proof their business models. We have in place sustainability frameworks to facilitate holistic end-to-end solutions for customers and ecosystems. These are showing results. We see strong momentum in demand for green and sustainability-linked loans. Last month, global investors responded very well to our inaugural sustainability bond offering. It was the first in Singapore and the first dual-tranche issuance globally. Our recent appointment of key sustainability officers and dedicated team underscores our commitment to forge sustainable future. Message 4. For this year, our guidance remains intact. Looking ahead, we are positive on growth prospects as economies recover. Customer setup expansion plans and grow in personal wealth. However, we will always stay vigilant and nimble. Especially as economies are not fully out of the wood yet. For 2021, we expect profit to rebound, driven by high single-digit loan growth, double-digit noninterest income growth, stable cost-to-income ratio and lower credit cost to below 30 basis points, given our resilient portfolio. Over the medium to long term, we are confident of Asia's potential. Our solid performance, riding on our franchise is possible because of the efforts and teamwork of my colleagues across the network. I thank them for their dedications and contributions. To continue to build for the future, the bank is committed to invest in the right capabilities and technology to drive transformation. We believe these are key enablers in creating sustainable value for our long-term shareholders. Thank you for your support as we forge ahead. Okay. I will now hand over to my CFO, to elaborate on our financials.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#2

Thank you, Ee Cheong. And once again, good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us for this results briefing. As you know, after a very difficult 2020, our net profit for the first quarter this year actually rose above $1 billion. This is 46% increase in Q-on-Q profit and was a remarkable start to 2021 as broad-based growth are seen across our diversified franchise. NIM was stable at 1.57% despite the current low interest rate environment. As business activity picked up across markets, customer loans grew 4% this quarter. Noninterest income expanded by 30% with fees income at a record quarterly high, driven by both our consumer wealth management and our wholesale loans related fees. At the same time, asset quality remained resilient with NPL ratio stable at 1.5%. Total credit cost on loans fell to 29 basis points as we have made adequate provisions in 2020, and our reserve coverage continues to be high. We remain well-disciplined with our CET1 ratio strong at 14.3%. All segments showed good growth across the franchise, supported by improvement in economic and business activities. Retail reached a record high on wealth fees. The wealth, where wholesale saw faster growth as we were able to capture increasing demand from our large corporations and institutional clients for trade and investment banking activities. Global market commendable growth of 25% was the result of a very strong trading performance. Operating profit for wholesale grew 9% as Ee Cheong earlier mentioned, also actually had a record quarterly profit for this quarter on the back of ongoing diversification across geographies, sectors and products. In particular, cross-border income grew 7% and now accounts for 29% of the group wholesale banking income. So this is the result of what we have done previously on all our investments on sector solutioning and cross-border solutioning and all. Riding on the recovery momentum as trade and investment activities picked up across global economies, our non Singapore income increased 8%. Our financial sector continues to offer value-added solutions, registering a 10% income growth. Our corporate customers' usage of our digital platform continue to grow with the number of cashless payment to businesses by our corporate PayNow in Singapore, growing by 43% and the digital banking transactions by our Infinity increasing by 6%. On the retail front, our group retail operating profit grew 2% year-on-year on the back of record growth in wealth management fees. I think if you look at the details, it's quite commendable because the margin pressure in retail is actually quite high. So our growth in fees actually offset that margin pressure that we had. Our asset management rose 10% year-on-year to a new high of $136 billion. Of that amount, around 60% was from overseas customers across the group's network. Digital adoption continues to rise. Our digitally engaged customer rose by a further 5 percentage point. Our digital bank TMRW, continue to gain scale across Thailand and Indonesia with strong product proposition and ecosystem partnerships. TMRW now serves more than 300,000 customers across both countries. It accounts for 29% of our retail base in Indonesia and 15% of our retail base in Thailand. Total deposits grew 24% quarter-on-quarter, along with TMRW's growing scale, I think, more importantly, the cost of acquisition per customer fell significantly. The customers whom we are acquiring through TMRW will actually serve as an important pipeline for our future franchise growth across the group. The strength of the franchise is evident across our key regional markets, where you see we have strong growth in all markets. Overseas contribution to operating profit increased to 48%, reflecting the increase in cross-border connectivity activities. On the financials, I think I've touched on this earlier, and I'll let you read it on time. On the margin front, despite the current low rate environment, we managed to maintain NIM stable at 1.7%. So as a result, our net interest income grew 1%, supported by our loans growth of 4%. On the fees, I think that Ee Cheong mentioned, the first quarter fees income was a record high. The very strong momentum in wealth management fees led by a pickup in the equity market. With our customers investing more through our platform, our AUM grew 10% year-on-year. I think more importantly is, besides wealth, our loans related fees showed strong growth across Singapore, Hong Kong and the USA. These are from increased participation in large syndicated and M&A deals. Trading and investment income rose by 62% to $246 million this quarter, led by higher gains from investment securities and a stronger trading income, then coupled with an increase in customer-related treasury demands. Expenses. Expense increased 4% quarter -- quarterly -- quarter-on-quarter, mainly from staff costs. I think this in tandem with our accrual for the stronger income growth. On the back of the stronger income growth, cost-to-income ratio improved to 43.8%. The overall asset quality of our loans portfolio remained resilient as our new NPA formations stayed low. Coupled with payment recoveries, NPL ratios were stable at 1.5%. While NPL emergence is low, we are conscious that the various support measures may have a lagging effect on NPL. So we remain cautious and careful. However, based on our stress test, we are confident that the impact from our variable exposure is manageable. You all remember that we did the bottom-up and going through the details of those. And there are some changes, but we are generally comfortable with the overall level, has not changed significantly. So our preemptive allowances that we made in 2020, okay? It's more than enough to offset this should they happen. Together with a stabilizing credit outlook, I think credit costs eased to 29 basis points this quarter. As of the end of the quarter, the group has $4.7 billion of total allowances, of which $3 billion relates to allowances for nonimpact assets and company called GP. NPA coverage remained high at 112% or 257% after taking collateral into account, while performing loans coverage is well above 1%. Customer loans grew 4% quarter-on-quarter, mainly from term and trade loans of our corporate and institutional customers in Singapore and North Asia as e-commerce activity has picked up, amid the improving outlook. Deposits increased 3% with CASA to total deposit ratio stable at 53.5%. The liquidity front, we are very comfortable with our LCR at 139% and NSFR at 121%, which are well above the minimum regulatory environment -- requirements. Okay. We actually let our NSFR drop a little bit, mainly because we are confident with the stability of our CASA, and we are flushing out a lot of the high cost deposits. So it's a cautious effort and something that our ALCO discussed, and that's the result of the discussion. Okay. While CET1 is to 14.3%, due to strong loans growth, we remain well positioned to support customers when more opportunity arises in the future. To summarize this, some of the few key messages. Loans growth were strong at 4% for the quarter, signaling the start of the economic activities. If you look at the details, we were a bit cautious on Southeast Asia in the first quarter. And if we expect recoveries in the second or at the later part, our diversified portfolio will be well on track to deliver the high single-digit growth that Ee Cheong actually guided. Fees are at record levels. Wealth fees continue to be strong. Okay. We have been building our platform, our digital engagement platform, and AUM are at record high. More important is the wholesale business. There is now growing demand for trade loans and advisory services. As we guided, while economies start opening up, the regional franchise is where we are, have the best opportunity. So together with our strong treasury and our enhanced capability, we are confident to deliver double-digit growth for noninterest income for 2021. As for credit, the first quarter came in at 29 basis points. Like I said, the review of our portfolio, we remain confident that we are able to manage it. So we are expecting credit cost to be lower than the 30 basis points in 2021 given a resilient loans book. With that, I conclude my presentation. I'll pass it back to you, miss.

Stephen Shih Tung

executive
#3

[Operator Instructions] [ Tanya ] from Bloomberg.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#4

Congrats on the good numbers. I have 3 questions. The first one, could you please give guidance on lending income and NIM for 2021? Lending income and NIM for 2021, guidance.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#5

Lending income?

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#6

Yes. Interest income, interest income, yes.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#7

Interest income in...

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#8

Yes, that's first question. Second, your retail franchise is doing very well in wealth. My question is Citigroup is going to sell its consumer assets in many markets that you are operating. Are you interested? Or are you in talk to acquire any of these assets? My third question about office space for the whole group. Could you please share whether you are reviewing the usage? How many percent that you look to give up and please share the time line?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#9

Why don't you answer the first one. It's interesting.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#10

So I think we are guiding for flat margins, stable margins for this year. Obviously, it's the view of where interest rate will be.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#11

Is it 1.57%?

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#12

It's 1.57%. So we are actually guiding that. Banks always have an upward biasness if interest rate goes up, okay, mainly because we can reprice our loans faster than deposits and also the excess funds that we put into the government securities. So our view is that if interest rate stays and the benchmark rate stays around this level, we should be able to maintain the stable margin that we are facing. Anything will be depending on market. And if market interest rate goes up, obviously, there will be an upward biasness for the bank. So looking at that, if you assume margins will be stable, it's a matter of loans growth, right, because it's volume x rate. So you will see maybe what you've seen in the first quarter, 5% NII could be a good level to estimate.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#13

Okay. Your second question is about whether we are interested in looking at Citibank portfolio. Well, I think we are always open to acquisition opportunities. In fact, we have a team of dedicated people to always look for opportunities. As long as is strategically fit and at the right price, and it has to make sense for the long term, we will look at it.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#14

You will look at it?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#15

Yes.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#16

Citi, in general, or...

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#17

Say it again.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#18

Are you talking about Citibank? Or are you talking about assets in general of anything?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#19

Yes. Generally, in everything, but in this particular case, you are talking about Citibank, right? Yes, we...

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#20

So you are looking at it?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#21

Yes, yes.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#22

You are looking at it, okay.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#23

So I think Citi announced, we are still waiting for the details. I think the details are expected to come up maybe at later part of this month, like in all assets, okay? It is in our franchise that we are in. It's incremental to our franchise. Definitely, we will be keen to look at good assets that are -- that we are reviewing. So when the [ IM ] comes up, I think we can then get a better answer whether we are keen to pursue. But in general, like Ee Cheong says, we are always on the lookout that will expand our franchise.

Unknown Attendee

attendee
#24

I see. Yes, I am particularly interested because you're growing very well in Thailand and Vietnam and Indonesia, which are the areas that Citi is divesting so...

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#25

Yes, we will look at it. We will let you know. And also the -- your last question is about office space, right? While with digitalization and flexible working hours, definitely, there is room to be more flexible in terms of space requirement. But I think what is important for you is don't just look at the headline. You will be with the exception of this flow, right, very generous. But generally, I think our office space, if I'm not mistaken, is about 1.2 meter per employee. We are already quite tight in terms of customer, in terms of welfare, we have to make sure we are able to work comfortably, right? Whereas other organization, we look at, it could be 1.7, 1.8. So there are more room for them to cut down. But as far as we are concerned, we will look at opportunity to reduce. But given the social distancing and all these things. So I think the reduction net-net, to answer your question, it may not be so much. Our Hong Kong operation, in fact, we just moved to a different center. So that is a big reduction in Hong Kong, right? Because you know Hong Kong rent is very high, right? And most of the region in Southeast Asia, we actually own our own -- we own the building. So now that we have a new building in Malaysia, we are actually actively looking at how we can have more open space arrangement with our staff. And our Thailand too, right, all this will be ready, I think, towards end or beginning of next year. So these are all the space planning that we have put in place. And not only that, also, we are going for the green building, this is the best opportunity for us to be more sustainable in the long term.

Stephen Shih Tung

executive
#26

Can we get the next question, please? Straits Times.

Prisca Ang

attendee
#27

Given the recent surge in local...

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#28

You are from what...

Prisca Ang

attendee
#29

Prisca from The Straits Times. Given the recent surge in local community cases and the second and third wave of infection in various countries around overall, how does this factor into the bank's outlook for the coming months? And does it expect its SME clients, for example, to face more challenges? And how does this factor into its NPL?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#30

Well, it's a very timely question to ask, right? If the government never announce all these things, I don't think you ask this, they just announced. So this is very right timing. But I believe, if you compare to 1 year ago, the situation is a lot better, right? Now it's a question of how fast the vaccination can come. And I believe Singapore as well as the region, China, Greater China, I believe, speed to market, every government is trying to work on quickly to vaccinate the own population as fast as possible. So I'm not really overly concerned. As far as our target is concerned, you heard it loud and clear. I believe this year is going to be a strong year for the bank.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#31

So Ee Cheong, can I just add to that? I think like we said, this is not new. It's just the official announcement. It's something that we're observing on the ground, okay? Like our PM say, no one is safe until everyone is safe. And you know that the rest of the world are not safe, especially in the region. So we remain cautious. Okay. There was a related question that I'll just preempt is that, why don't we write like GP, okay? Mainly because that if you look at the uncertainty that we have, and we don't think that we have fully recovered, we wanted to be a bit more cautious. Hence, we reduced credit guidance because our bottom up, like I said, although that portfolio didn't change significantly, there are changes. And we are confident, but we don't think that we should be writing it so early. That's our view. Okay, rightly or wrongly. So that's what we observed even before this announcement. So I think where we are, we are very close to the ground. We actually talk to customers all the time. Before any announcement, we actually understand the impact to customers and we're already taking proactive steps to make sure that we can support the right customers. So those activities continue. Like Ee Cheong said, this is a little bit different from the last time, this is when we are going back to something that we are familiar with. So we think that the implication might not be that big. It will be a selected, targeted approach rather than the mass approach that we started so it's something that I think Ee Cheong is working with MAS and the government very closely to see how the banking community can still stay to support, okay, these needs. So that's our view, even on -- consistent with how we manage our GPs.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#32

And even for this quarter, right, for this quarter, we continue to provide, right? We continue to provide. It's good to show bottom line. But in the meantime, I think balance sheet -- to continue to strengthen the balance sheet is equally important.

Stephen Shih Tung

executive
#33

Question from Nikkei.

Takashi Nakano

attendee
#34

Takashi from Nikkei. I have 2 questions. First is loan growth in Singapore is 7% year-on-year basis and loan growth in Greater China, 5%. So these 2 areas are very strong in terms of loan demand. But for the rest of the Southeast Asia, loan growth is at 0%. So do you think this trend will continue throughout the year? And the second question is I believe you expect a good performance throughout the year, not for this quarter, but throughout the year, you expect a good performance -- good results. What would be the main risk factors to achieve the good performance?

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#35

I think -- well, I'm not a magician, okay, not easy to predict accurately, but I'm just giving you the trend. Yes, the first quarter, I believe, Asia, Singapore, in particular, Singapore and Greater China is doing better in terms of loan growth. But our strength is actually in ASEAN, right? ASEAN, as I articulated in my speech, it may come second half or first half of next year, right? And the situation, I believe, will further improve. That, to me, I think, would be a lot more sustainable as far as UOB is concerned. This is where our key strength is. This is why it give us a lot of confidence, I think, for this year, to answer your question. If nothing changed, I think the momentum will continue to be strong.

Stephen Shih Tung

executive
#36

And can we have the next question? Goola from the Edge.

Goola Warden

attendee
#37

I want to ask a few questions. First 1 is, how much do you have left in relief loans -- in the relief loans in the government measures? And then -- okay, so I put this down, but I think maybe Wai Fai could address it. In addition to organic growth, how much of write-backs would you be looking at for the rest -- for the full year, for the full year? And then for the $1 trillion in green loans that you mentioned that you have access to, how much do you think -- I mean, how much do you think UOB can access of that? And where are they likely to be in the region? And then there's a question on TMRW, how many of TMRW's customers are new retail customers in your 2 markets? Because you said you had -- some of them are new and some of them are current. And then okay, the question was, would you continue to look at organic growth, but I think you addressed that question with acquisitions and -- oh, yes, for liquidity, could you give an outlook on your transaction banking and cash management strategies so that to increase customer accounts.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#38

Okay. You -- many questions. If I can remember, let me just answer a few and then maybe see if I can supplement. As far as the opportunity, the $1 trillion opportunities for the green loan, difficult for me to tell you what percentage, but I believe we look at things in a more holistic approach. We have a big customer base across ASEAN. And I'd like to see -- we work closely with our customer as well as our ecosystem partners and to help our customer going through the transition. I think that is where the multiplier effect is coming. And we actually -- we are the first bank in Asia to come up with the financing program for sustainability. And traction is coming in. And in fact, the gentleman behind you, he is my Chief Sustainable Officer, Eric Lim. So I think he will be -- he will be the one that is spear heading all the initiatives and put the whole group and looking at things in a bit more cohesive manner. Now for TMRW, I think if 3 years ago, I think I believe you were in the meeting, right? We took a very entrepreneurial approach of setting up a digital bank. We wanted to start in Thailand because Thailand, I believe, not that we have a tie offer there. I believe Thailand is the country that has a young population, and they are more IT serving. So we started in Thailand. In fact, we have 2 engine running Thailand, okay? One is TMRW, one is Mighty. Now you can say it's overdone, but this is how initially, we want to start. We want to test the response of the customer, right? And eventually, we will try to streamline operations. And it took us about [ 14 ] months to set up a digital bank. The timing was very good because -- partly because we centralized a lot of our IT infrastructure. So we are able to get everything ready, 14 months to set up a bank. And right after that, it took us 11 months to set up in Indonesia. So the traction is very good. You can see the number is still small, 300,000, but we -- our aspiration is to hit 5 million customers in 2024. And you can see it's growing very fast, and customer response is good. The feedback is good. So what we are doing now is we are trying to replicate our digital capabilities throughout the whole bank, okay? We have a Mighty in Singapore, and this is where we can see how we can learn from each other. Mighty is on a stand-alone basis. We have -- how many staff we have? 160, 160 staff in Mighty. These are totally young people, right? They create, a lot of creativity. That is important for the bank. This is where even the name of the bank is different than you, right? We want to create a different identity to the consumer. And so far, it has proven right, the decision that we have made 3 years ago. So I think the problem now is how we can replicate, how we can create synergy, okay, across the group to achieve our digital initiative.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#39

So I think there are 3 questions. 3 other questions because I don't remember. One was the relief loans I think it has not changed since the last quarter. Most of the government kept it intact. And if you even remember, places like Hong Kong extended it all the way to next year. I think we are watching that. So as a result, that number didn't come down. I always say that I think it's a good thing to look at, but more important is our own assessments of robustness of our customers, which is the bottom-up that we did. But looking at that number, it didn't change significantly since the last quarter. Second question was write back -- you're talking about write-back of NPL or write-back of provision.

Goola Warden

attendee
#40

Provision...

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#41

GP? Right, right...

Goola Warden

attendee
#42

[indiscernible].

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#43

Okay. So my point are 2 things. Number one is when we're on what I consider writing back GP. We are building that for eventuality, should this happen. And we know that the NPL formation is not happening yet. Okay, while our bottom-up still talk about a 2 billion number, this could be extended and further down the road. So to write it back today is to ask a little too premature. What will happen is that when that comes in and to be very frank, in Thailand itself, when we look at it, we were looking at the business banking market, and we thought that it will be quite badly hit. And true enough because of all the small business and all, they will quite benefit this quarter. So we actually wrote back in Thailand, okay, the things that we set aside for business banking, that's a small number compared to the big giants. Plus the addition that we are putting in is for the new. So my stand is that there are only 2 things that we'll write-back. #1 is the NPA formation becomes as bad as we thought, okay? It means that the conditions that we set aside happen, we will write-back. The second condition is we are so sure that it wouldn't happen, we'll write back. So I think neither of those we are comfortable at this point. So it depends, we will see. But at the same time, we will slow down the addition so that the portfolio is stable.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#44

I think Ula, I think important philosophy for the group is try to grow. We are progressively growing. You can see the result but at the same time, we like stability. That is important, right? We want to make sure the balance sheet is okay, our capital is strong. This is why -- and if you look at the whole COVID situation, it caught everyone by surprise, okay? It's a black swan event. And a event like this, nobody can predict. So this is where, I think while the earning is good, we continue to provide, we continue to make sure our capital is strong.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#45

So you have one last question on liquidity. What is our strategy on transactional banking, cash reinsurance to capture that? So we always talk about 2 things, right? In terms of strategy, one is capability; second is systems; and third, when you're going to get the customers. We spent the last 2 years building capabilities. So you look at our people that is from the FI, the transaction banking people, we are building systems, you look at the launch of Infinity that has actually come out and that actually allowed us to do all this cross-border thing that we are talking about. So with that now, we are getting the customers, okay? We need to make customers use us as the primary account. So if you have the capabilities, and that is where products goes in, okay? And like Ee Cheong mentioned, we are now starting to win awards, okay, mainly because of our capability and able to do that. And the more they deal with us, the more they will keep using us as a primary account. So that is what we are doing. And more important is we have the capability now to do it across the group. And that is the big advantage to have, in Singapore itself, you will argue that I'm equally competitive with all the banks. But I have a transaction that cross border, okay, and across 2 countries, if a regional CFO comes to us and says that, look, I'm in Europe, I want to look at my investments in Southeast Asia, my holding company is in Singapore, but my manufacturing is in Malaysia, and I've got a supplier in Thailand, I'm able to give them the view. Then that is the one that we are talking about cross border, connectivity and sector solutioning, and that's the capability that we talk about. We go to the business, not to give a loan. Because you just go there and said, I give you a loan, everybody can do it and then we're back to margins. We go back and tell them that we know where our pain point. We help you ease it, even help you track your suppliers if you need to and get that solutioning up. So those that we are talking about investing over the last few years. And I think those are now happening. And if ASEAN, like our friend ask, continues to expand, okay? You will see a lot more of that coming in. So this first quarter, like we said, we are cautious on Southeast Asia. But our view is that if the economies or if the COVID restrictions stabilize, the countries themselves are going into infrastructure spending and [indiscernible] it will definitely benefit in the Southeast Asia franchise. And a lot of this will be going through. So those are the things that we are now more confident that our CASA are more stable rather than pay for rent. So as a result, I'm confident to start reducing my LCR because they're quite costly to keep.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#46

Goola, just to -- because we have been tracking. Every time I see you, our result -- you remember, I said a few times about we are the first bank in ASEAN to setup a dedicated...

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#47

FDI.

Ee Cheong Wee

executive
#48

FDI Advisory Unit. We started this in 2011. Now this unit is replicated throughout the whole ASEAN. And we have actually introduced about close to 3,000 -- slightly more than 3,500 customers, right, from different parts from China, Japan, from Korea, from Europe, when they want to come to ASEAN to invest, we are helping them to facilitate that. And last year, actually -- last year, we signed MOU with Vietnam, FIA, right? And we also tied up with Singapore business federations, and we are the only bank to help Singapore SME to internationalize, deepen our network because that is important for us. This is where our strength is in ASEAN, right? All our cash management, these are regional solution. Costly, but this is where very difficult for any of my competitor to replicate. I don't want to just have a me-too products, okay, right? This is where you can understand we are from Thailand. I'm from Singapore, the different culture, different language, to put a system, a regional solution, it will take time. But it's already ready, right? This investment we started many years ago. So you can start to see we are reaping the benefit. This is why we are confident if ASEAN continue to open up, this is where the opportunity is. This is not something that happens overnight.

Stephen Shih Tung

executive
#49

Thank you, Mr. Wee. Are there any more questions from the floor? Okay. And if not, then, thank you very much for coming today. We will conclude the session.

Wai Fai Lee

executive
#50

Thank you.

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to United Overseas Bank Limited earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.