Q1: How did the business perform in 2025, and what drove its growth over the past year? How has the cost-income ratio trended this year, and what were the key factors influencing it? Looking ahead, what are your main priorities and strategic plans for 2026?

UOB has seen healthy AUM growth year-on-year (yoy), with wealth AUM growing by 8% yoy. Fee income has also seen very strong growth. 

UOB Private Bank’s cost-income ratio remains healthy and stable. Leveraging technology, data, partnerships, and strategic initiatives across other parts of the bank also helps enhance our operational and cost efficiency, delivering greater value to our clients. These include leveraging automation and data analytics capabilities to replace manual KYC due diligence processes, and harnessing validated AI models to enhance the productivity of our portfolio managers in client advisory.

Going into 2026, we will continue to leverage our strong ASEAN network and One Bank proposition to drive healthy AUM growth. We remain focused on sharpening our key differentiator to value add to our clients, which is our ability to provide a comprehensive suite of products and services cutting across the Bank, allowing us to cater to the personal and business needs and ambitions of our clients.

Q2: Looking at the investment outlook for 2026, which markets and asset classes are you prioritising for client portfolios to capture opportunities while managing risks? How are clients currently allocating their portfolios, and what trends are you seeing in DPM adoption and investment behaviour?

We remain positive on equities, maintaining an overweight allocation with a focus on the United States and Emerging Markets. As we look to 2026, our “go global” approach reflects the more attractive valuations outside the US. We expect investment styles such as growth at a reasonable price (GARP) and value to gain momentum as investors seek quality opportunities in a higher-priced market environment.

In fixed income, tight spreads mean opportunities will be selective rather than broad-based. Gold continues to play a role as a long-term store of value, though we do not anticipate the strong price gains seen in recent years. Private assets are becoming an essential pillar of diversified portfolios, but success will depend on careful manager selection.

Our focus remains on helping clients capture growth while managing risk through disciplined global diversification and active positioning.

Our DPM penetration rate among accredited clients remains at a healthy level. In recent years, our DPM business has demonstrated robust growth, with AUM increasing at a compound annual growth rate of over 30% across the past five years. 

Our 2026 investment outlook remains focused on identifying opportunities while maintaining prudent risk management for our clients’ portfolios. We continue to see increased client interest in non-USD solutions, with notable demand for Singapore dollar mandates, Japan and Asian equity mandates, as well as customised bond mandates denominated in Singapore dollar, British Pounds and Australian Dollars. 

In response to falling fixed deposit rates, many clients are also shifting towards income-generating portfolios, including Singapore REITS and fixed coupon notes, which offer compelling alternatives for yield and diversification.

Q3: With artificial intelligence increasingly shaping the wealth industry, how has the firm leveraged technology and AI to transform processes and enhance value for both clients and the back office? What key technology upgrades were introduced in 2025, and what are your digital priorities for 2026 and beyond?

The acceleration of AI innovation and adoption presents an exciting opportunity for wealth management. UOB Private Bank continues to invest in cutting-edge technologies such as generative AI to enhance client experiences, operational efficiency and risk management. We also continuously upgrade the functionalities of our portfolio management systems to ensure information is presented to clients in a timely, interactive and practical manner. 

Currently, UOB Private Bank harnesses successfully validated AI models to boost the productivity of our portfolio managers and improve the quality and consistency of decision-making. Such technologies have greatly aided our portfolio managers in collating and organising the necessary information and data across multiple sources, enabling more proactive risk management and supporting our engagement and advisory to clients.

Looking ahead, we have also embarked on a multi-year GenAI initiative to further uplift and enhance how we advise our clients. Once fully deployed, our relationship managers’ (RMs) efficiency and ability to personalise solutions to better fit our clients’ needs will be further enhanced, thus leading to better productivity and client experience.  

We have established strong governance of the data and AI models that we adopt, ensuring that they are aligned with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency framework and Project MindForge. This is part of our longer-term plans to explore and adopt AI technology for meaningful and sustainable business outcomes, and to adopt AI in a responsible manner.

Q4: The private banking industry saw a plethora of leadership and structural changes in 2025. Looking into 2026, what are your key priorities for attracting and retaining talent across the front, middle, and back office? Are there plans for new hires in key markets?

UOB’s human resource philosophy is to create a sustainable workforce, where the bank adopts a calibrated approach to hiring in both good and bad times. At UOB Private Bank, we are always looking out for exceptional talent and will continue to hire judiciously in Singapore and Hong Kong as two of our key markets, from within and outside the private banking industry. 

Being a third-generation bank ourselves, our focus is to serve our clients across generations. Talent retention is key to ensuring we can take care of our clients over the long term. We continually invest in our people’s career development through upgrading courses, ensuring our RMs are trained with the best capabilities and tools to help our clients grow, protect and transfer their wealth. We reward strong performers in recognition of their work, while also providing internal mobility options for suitable candidates who are looking for more flexibility. This disciplined approach ensures we retain our competitiveness and long-term resilience in the space.

UOB’s 90 years of deep-rooted history in Singapore, a wide suite of products, DPM, deep lending capability and unique client value proposition allow us to attract candidates who wish to continue their growth journey with us. These, coupled with our strong ASEAN connectivity and anchored through our One Bank proposition, are strong foundational elements that help our RMs to thrive in their careers with us.