Building and Deepening Long-term Relationships / Doubling Down on Our Core Strengths and Partnering Businesses for Sustainable Regional Growth

Doubling Down on Our Core Strengths and Partnering Businesses for Sustainable Regional Growth

Our strategy for the long term is clear — double down on our core strengths and focus on partnering businesses for sustainable growth in the region. We have set our sights to be the number one cross-border trade bank in ASEAN, leveraging our ASEAN connectivity, people, as well as product and digital capabilities.

For the past 90 years, we have been strengthening cross-border connectivity and catalysing business growth. We look forward to partnering businesses to capture the immense trade and
investment opportunities in ASEAN and beyond.

Frederick Chin
Head of Group Wholesale Banking and Markets

While 2025 was characterised by high global volatility, ASEAN remains resilient and a strategic hedge against global economic headwinds.

ASEAN is on track to become the fourth-largest economic bloc in the world with a projected GDP of US$5.8 trillion by 2030. It is also the #3 global FDI destination, driven by supply chain shifts, geopolitical realignments, and rising consumer affluence in the region.

Our strategy for the long term is clear — double down on our core strengths and focus on partnering businesses for sustainable growth in the region. We have set our sights to be the number one cross-border trade bank in ASEAN, leveraging our ASEAN connectivity, people, as well as product and digital capabilities.

For the past 90 years, we have been strengthening cross-border connectivity and catalysing business growth. We look forward to partnering businesses to capture the immense trade and investment opportunities in ASEAN and beyond.

Unrivalled ASEAN network and capabilities, strengthening cross-border connectivity

Businesses no longer see ASEAN as just a manufacturing hub, but a strategic hub for storage of goods, fulfilment of orders and distribution of goods. They are looking to strengthen end-to-end operations and improve responsiveness to market by building out local infrastructure and overlaying with centralised treasury and financial supply chain management solutions to optimise working capital.

As the One Bank for ASEAN, we support businesses, capture foreign direct investment flows to the region, enable centralised treasury management and facilitate cross-border trade flows.

Driving connected ecosystems through integrated solutions and deep expertise

Companies spanning the full spectrum of industries, from established, traditional sectors to digital‑native and fast‑emerging ecosystems, choose to partner us to drive their cross‑border growth and digital transformation. Our impact goes beyond individual enterprises.

We enable industry‑wide transformation at a national level, supporting broader digitalisation agendas by modernising traditionally paper‑heavy sectors through industry‑leading digital payment and channel solutions. We lead supply chain financing programmes that strengthen supply chain resiliency and enable seamless flows across multi‑sector, multi-segment value chain partners. This is made possible through our trade and supply chain, treasury specialists’ deep industry expertise, strong sectoral understanding, and the strength of our solutioning advisory, underpinned by robust digital product capabilities.

Our sustained investment in technology and product innovation has generated a solid nine‑fold return over the past decade. This is further reinforced by the trust our clients place in us, demonstrated by the scale and strategic significance of the partnerships we continue to secure across sectors.

Sector-specific expertise, building sustainable growth

Our on-ground specialists leverage extensive industry experience and deep market insights to provide our clients with tailored advisory and solutions to navigate complex trade environments and connect to growth opportunities.

As a green transition is shaping a safer and more sustainable ASEAN, we are enabling businesses both big and small to adopt sustainable practices as we make the transition together. Our net zero commitments are based on our regional pathways for the continued growth of six key sectors.

We believe in partnering businesses and our stakeholders to create value and drive sustainable outcomes for the long term.

UOB deploys foreign direct investment (FDI), sector and product specialists to provide advisory that help clients drive growth and digitalise business interactions with our anchors and spokes counterparts across payments, collections, working capital, and financial supply chain management financing. This is made possible by leveraging our market leading solutions, developed through working closely with industry and trade associations, and delivered via our UOB Infinity platform.

Our strategic community enabler UOB FinLab partners companies on their digitalisation journeys, while we continue to work with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and industry partners to explore use cases for blockchain technologies that drive greater efficiency, reduce risks and strengthen our commitment to a compliance-first approach – for example, for Central Bank Digital Currency and tokenised assets.

We remain steadfast in our strive towards being the number one cross-border trade bank in ASEAN, partnering businesses to mobilise capital investments for effective business capture across key growth industries, enabled through our wide ranging banking and financial services. These industries include consumer goods and healthcare, construction and infrastructure, energy and chemicals, industrials, real estate and hospitality and telecom, media and technology.

Key achievements

Trade loans growth

+26%

year on year

Wholesale banking loans growth

+5%

year on year

Wholesale banking CASA

+15%

year on year

Wholesale banking customer treasury income

+7%

year on year

In partnership with Changi Airport Group (CAG), which manages the World’s Best Airport*, we co-created an industry-first Supply Chain Financing programme to strengthen the resilience of its supply chain and advance its vision as a global aviation hub.

Leveraging our deep sectorial insights of the built environment, we delivered a tailored Financial Supply Chain Management Solution to many CAG suppliers, service providers and contractors. From large multinationals to SMEs, we were able to meet their financing, liquidity and process efficiency requirements on one single platform, UOB Infinity.

This integrated end-to-end solution enables CAG’s supply chain partners to gain seamless access to affordable financing and fulfil their working capital requirements across the procurement process, from pre-to-post-shipment stages.

*Singapore Changi Airport is one of the most awarded airports in the world, having received over 700 “Best Airport” awards.

“The success formula of Changi Airport Group’s vision lies in its steadfast capacity expansion, enabling superior experiences and catalysing passenger growth. But we also need to work with strong partners to execute the formula, and we succeed only when our partners succeed together with us. Amongst their many needs, liquidity is an important aspect for our partners’ success and growth; and through our collaboration with UOB, we were able to avail liquidity in a frictionless manner to our partners and contractors. This empowers and assures them that they will be able to get the capital they need and when they need it for the fruition of projects.”

Mr Choy Dawen
Chief Financial Officer, Changi Airport Group

Mr Choy Dawen, Chief Financial Officer, Changi Airport Group, speaking at UOB's Gateway to ASEAN Conference 2025 moderated by Mr Venkatesh Somanathan, Head of Regional Trade Sales and Advisory, Group Transaction Banking, UOB.

Digital penetration rate 2025

85%

Digital transactions
(2023 – 2025)

+18%

Number of Financial Supply Chain Management Anchors

+11%

year on year

Number of Financial Supply Chain Management Spokes

+23%

year on year

Number of Invoices uploaded

+118%

year on year

For the past 12 years, we have been building and deepening our long-term relationship with Foxconn — the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and leading technological solution provider — to support their cross-border trade activities in ASEAN and beyond, and the acceleration of its business expansion.

With a shared goal for long-term business resilience, we are committed to advance Foxconn’s growth strategy across its key international markets with critical AI-driven developments to power a digital and innovative future.

As we deepen our collaboration, we continue to provide access to new markets and seize trade opportunities for Foxconn as they scale their technology and capacity globally — through the combination of our extensive trade network, strong sector expertise and Financial Supply Chain Management (FSCM) capabilities.

2025 marked a transformative year for FDI Advisory (FDIA) as we strengthened regional corridors and enabled
cross-border growth for businesses.

Strengthening regional connectivity and strategic dialogue

In March 2025, we launched our 11^th FDI Centre in Seoul, reinforcing the Singapore–Korea corridor and commemorating 50 years of bilateral ties. Complementing this launch, we co-hosted the Korea-ASEAN Business Forum to foster dialogue and unlock new investment opportunities.

As a founding partner of the Singapore Business Federation’s ASEAN Conference 2025, we convened more than 600 leaders from 20 countries. The conference featured a ministerial dialogue among ASEAN leaders, focusing on supply chain resilience, accelerating digitalisation, and driving sustainability. A new segment – ASEANext – engaged next-generation leaders on innovation and future-ready strategies. We also signed five strategic Memoranda of Understanding aimed at boosting FDI flows across key economic corridors.

MOU signing between Mr Ian Wong, Head of Group International Management, UOB (front, left) and Ms Eunice Wong (front, right) Assistant Managing Director, Southeast Asia & China, Enterprise Singapore, at ASEAN Conference 2025.
Witnessed by [back: L-R] Mr Wee Ee Cheong, Deputy Chairman and CEO, UOB, Mr Gan Kim Yong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry, Singapore, and Mr S.S Teo, Chairman, Singapore Business Federation.

Fast-tracking investments into the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ)

Another key milestone was the launch of the Green Lane with Invest Johor under the JS-SEZ, streamlining investment processes for companies expanding into Johor, Malaysia.

Through this effort, we supported Gold Peak Technology Group in establishing its regional operations in Johor. This accelerated its planned total investment of RM670 million investment in five years into the JS-SEZ. Our team connected Gold Peak with government agencies and ecosystem partners, facilitated land acquisition, supplier sourcing, and incentive navigation. Coupled with tailored financial solutions and cross-border banking services, this partnership positions Johor as a hub for advanced battery technology and sustainable energy solutions, creating more than 150 high-value jobs across Southeast Asia.

Since FDIA’s inception, we have supported close to 5,500 companies in their internationalisation journey, driving investments into ASEAN and beyond.

(L-R) Mr Natazha Harris, Chief Executive Officer of Invest Johor, YAB Dato’ Onn Hafiz bin Ghazi, Menteri Besar of Johor and Ms Ng Wei Wei, Chief Executive Officer of UOB Malaysia at the launch ceremony of UOB-Invest Johor Green Lane.