Singapore bank results show promising outlook for Covid bad debts

OCBC, UOB and DBS are among the first lenders in Asia to report 2020 numbers. They’re in surprisingly good shape.

If Singaporean lenders are a barometer of the broader industry, the banking sector in Asia may be coming through Covid in better shape than we had any right to expect.

The annual results of OCBC and UOB in consecutive days this week, after DBS two weeks ago, show some strikingly cheerful conclusions about asset quality.

OCBC’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio, at 1.5%, is flat year-on-year, and UOB’s up just one 10th of a percentage point at 1.6%,

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