Best Bank: UOB

Will the bank’s payouts after a phishing scam set a precedent?

The Singapore-based lender has established a new benchmark for SME banking

Court documents relating to fraud charges against a young and flamboyant Singapore trader show that most of the country’s banks have had a relationship with him.

When Covid began to close in on southeast Asia in 2020, UOB didn’t wait. In February 2020, before any government support and before much of the west had even acknowledged there was a virus to worry about, UOB announced S$3 billion of relief assistance to SME clients.

The full-year results of DBS, OCBC and UOB marked the first time in a year the Singaporean banks had attempted to give any kind of media briefing face-to-face.

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

Singapore’s banks have dominated this award in recent years and for good reason. The super-stable city state boasts a trio of excellent lenders, all geared toward helping its army of small and medium-sized enterprises flourish.

UOB is run by three generations of the Wee family, with a fourth in the wings. It is conservative, cautious and stable. But a bold new digital strategy seeks five million customers across the region. Is it coincidence that change is coming just as the bank’s elder statesman retires at 90?

UOB has a reputation for conservatism. It is a family dynasty bank that thinks for the very long term, so the digital shifts of recent years there are highly important. The announcement during our review period of a new digital bank for the region came alongside a greater level of openness at the bank. Both are welcome.

This is the region where fintech disruption has been most potent. Underbanked and with large populations comfortable with smartphones, Asia has been fertile ground for technology-enabled payments providers with a knack for crunching big data.

As part of Euromoney's 50th anniversary coverage, we profile some of the biggest names that we interviewed for our May Asia focus.

Singapore bank announces new digital banking offering; Claims it will be the first to truly engage – but is it?