Okay, good morning. Welcome to OCBC's full year, 2025, fourth quarter 2025, results briefing. On our panel this morning, we have our Group CEO, Mr. Tan Teck Long, our CFO, Ms. Goh Chin Yee, and as well as our colleagues from our whole-of-wealth, which our CEO will be talking about, which is Mr. Sunny Quek, Head of Consumer Financial Services, CEO of Bank of Singapore, Mr. Jason Moo. We have today with us the CEO of Great Eastern, and that's Mr. Greg Hingston. Last but not least, our Head of Global Markets, Mr. Kenneth Lai. Chin Yee, our CFO, will take us through our presentation slides, and thereafter we will take Q&A. Chin Yee, please.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us in our FY 2025 results briefing. OCBC's profit before tax for full year of 2025 rose 2% year-on-year to a record SGD 9.12 billion. This was the first time our pre-tax profit crossed the SGD 9 billion mark. FY 2025 group net profit of SGD 7.42 billion was 2% below our record SGD 7.59 billion a year ago, due to higher tax expense. The rise in tax expense was mainly because of the increased profit contribution from higher tax jurisdictions and implementation of the 15% global minimum tax from the start of 2025. Our record pre-tax profit was driven by three key factors. Firstly, record total income. Secondly, well-managed expenses. Thirdly, lower allowances.
Net interest income fell 6% to SGD 9.15 billion in the declining interest rate environment. Non-interest income grew 16% to a new high of SGD 5.46 billion from broad-based growth. This more than compensated for the decline in NII. Fee and trading income both rose to record levels, up 22% and 10 respectively. In particular, our wealth management fees and customer flow treasury income also hit new highs, driven by increased client activities and franchise strength. Insurance income also delivered a strong 17% increase. Operating expenses were well managed, up 2%. cost-to-income ratio was largely maintained at 40%. Our disciplined risk management kept NPL ratio stable at 0.9% across the past seven quarters. Credit costs were lower at 17 basis points.
On capital, CET1 ratio was 16.9% on transitional basis and 15.1% on fully phased-in basis. With our resilient financial results and sound capital position, we are pleased to announce a final ordinary dividend of $0.42 and a special dividend of $0.16 for FY 2025. Together with our interim dividend of $0.41, total dividend for FY 2025 will amount to $0.99. This represents a 60% dividend payout ratio. On our fourth quarter performance, group net profit was 3% higher than a year ago, driven by 6% growth in income and 4% lower allowances. Against the previous quarter, net profit was 12% lower, mainly due to income seasonality and higher allowances. Moving on to our performance by three key business pillars on slide five.
Wealth management and insurance delivered strong results, which more than compensated for the lower profit from banking. Wealth management income and AUM both rose to new highs. Wealth management income was 14% higher at SGD 5.6 billion. It now contributes to 38% of group total income, up from 34% a year ago. Banking AUM expanded 15% to SGD 343 billion, driven by both net new money inflows as well as positive market valuation. Net new money inflow in the fourth quarter was SGD 6 billion. For the full year, our net new money inflows totaled SGD 27 billion, up by close to 30% from a year ago. On insurance, profit contribution from Great Eastern rose 28% to SGD 1.13 billion, driven by stronger insurance and investment performance. New business embedded value, or MV, grew 19%-
Our NBEV margin improved to 48.2% as Great Eastern continued to shift towards higher margin products. Banking profit before tax was 2% lower at SGD 7.65 billion, mainly due to lower net interest income, partly mitigated by double-digit growth in non-interest income. I'll move on to details of our group performance trends, starting on slide eight. FY 2025, NII declined to SGD 9.15 billion, impacted by sharp declines in key benchmark rates, in particular, SORA and HIBOR. This was mitigated by an 8% growth in our average assets and the benefits from our cash flow hedges. The asset growth was driven by loans, up 7% year-over-year and on constant currency basis, up 9%. Our deposits also grew strongly, up 10% year-over-year. The excess liquidity was deployed to high quality assets.
For the fourth quarter, NII was 6% lower year-on-year and 3% up quarter-on-quarter. Our quarter-on-quarter rise in NII was driven by a 2% asset growth, lower funding costs, and continued deployment of excess liquidity to high quality assets. NII sensitivity based on one basis point drop in rates across our four major currencies of Singapore dollars, Malaysian ringgit, Hong Kong dollars, and U.S. dollars was about SGD 6 billion on an annualized basis. NIM for FY 2025 was 1.91%. Our exit NIM for December was 1.84%. We will continue to lower our cost of deposits to manage funding costs, deploy liquidity to income accretive assets to grow income, and capture hedging opportunities to mitigate loan yield compression. Moving on to non-interest income.
Our full year non-interest income rose 16% to a record SGD 5.46 billion, driven by broad-based growth across fee, trading, and insurance income. For the quarter, non-interest income rose 37% year-on-year, but was 16% lower quarter on quarter, as wealth management and customer flow treasury income were impacted by seasonality in the fourth quarter. Full year 2025, fee income grew 22% to a record SGD 2.41 billion, lifted by growth across all major fee businesses, in particular, wealth management. Our wealth management fees surged 33% to a new high of SGD 1.23 billion and contributed to more than half of our group fee income. The strong performance were driven by two factors. First, improved client sentiments and higher average percentage of invested AUM across all wealth segments.
Our invested AUM is now above 60%. Our strategic drive to strengthen our wealth franchise, including increasing RMs and use of digitalization. These are starting to deliver improved revenues and productivity. On trading income. Our trading income grew 10% to SGD 1.68 billion, as customer flow treasury income rose 20% to a new high of SGD 1.33 billion. The growth was driven by both wealth and corporate segments, with continued demand for FX hedging and investments products. On operating expenses. FY 2025 expenses increased by a modest 2%, mainly from higher staff and technology costs to support our business growth and raise productivity. Cost-to-income ratio was maintained at around 40%. We continue to invest strategically for growth while executing strong discipline in our discretionary expenses. Loan growth momentum was sustained.
On constant currency term, loans grew 9% year-on-year and 4% quarter on quarter to SGD 341 billion. Loan growth for the year was contributed by both corporate and consumer segments. By industry, the increase was broad-based, in line with our group strategy to capture opportunities in various growth sectors. This includes sustainable financing, TMT, including digital infrastructure, transport, as well as our Singapore residential mortgages. In particular, sustainable financing loans grew 13% year-on-year to SGD 56.5 billion, and now accounts for 17% of our total group loans. Our loan book remains well diversified across geographies and sectors. Overall, loan portfolio quality remains sound. NPL ratio was stable at 0.9% for seven consecutive quarters since June 2024.
NPAs were 9% higher quarter on quarter at SGD 3.24 billion, mainly due to downgrades of two corporate real estate accounts in Greater China in the fourth quarter. These accounts were previously classified as special mentioned loans and have been proactively managed. We remain vigilant and continue to actively monitor our loan portfolio. Total allowances for the full year declined 4% to SGD 665 million. Total credit costs were lower at 17 basis points. For the fourth quarter, total allowances were SGD 200 million, and mainly comprised SGD 236 million for impaired assets, largely for the two corporate real estate accounts that were downgraded.
This was offset by a net write-back of SGD 36 million for non-impaired assets, mainly due to migration to allowances for impaired assets and adjustment of MEV updates to reflect the improved GDP forecast. Our cumulative allowances were higher year-on-year at SGD 4.91 billion. NPA coverage stood at 151%. Allowances for non-impaired loans were maintained at 0.9% of total performing loans. Customer deposits growth 10% year-on-year and 4% quarter-on-quarter to SGD 428 billion, mainly driven by CASA. Our CASA deposits increased 14% year-on-year across corporate SME as well as consumer segments. CASA ratio has improved steadily over the last seven quarters to 50.7%.
This is a reflection of our efforts to gather lower costs and stickier deposits, as well as the lower interest rate environment. Our funding position remains stable, with 80% comprising of customer deposits. All funding and liquidity ratios are well below regulatory requirements. On capital. Transitionary CET1 ratio was 16.9%, and fully phased in CET1 ratio was 15.1%. Our robust capital position supports our growth strategy and enables us to deliver sustainable shareholders' returns. Moving on to my final slide on dividend. Our board has proposed a final ordinary dividend of SGD 0.42 and a special dividend of SGD 0.16 per share. With our interim dividend of SGD 0.41, the total dividend for FY 2025 will be SGD 0.99 per share, representing 60% of group net profit.
This is in line with our target payout ratio of 50% for ordinary dividend and 10% for special dividend for FY 2025 as part of our previously announced capital return plan. We remain committed to complete our SGD 2.5 billion capital return plan by FY 2026. With this, I end my presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. I will now hand the floor over to Teck Long. Teck Long, please.
Great, thank you. Thank you, Chin Yee. A very happy Chinese New Year to all of you. Last year was the Year of the Snake, the economy and the uncertainties in the world sort of took a zigzag pattern. I wish that for everyone in the room and for the economy of the world at large, that in the Year of the Horse, it's a sure-footed one and not a wild horse. If you recall, last year was actually a challenging year, especially after the announcement of the Liberation Day tariffs. The bank also faces interest rate pressure, and if you recall, in the second quarter of last year, HIBOR actually took a dive from 400 basis points to almost overnight, sub 100 basis points. Fortunately, it has resurfaced somewhat, and I hope for more stability.
Nevertheless, despite all these challenges, the bank managed to deliver a new high in income. To achieve this, we need all cylinders firing. We expanded our loan book, we grew our deposit, and for non-interest income, we achieved a double-digit growth. Great Eastern also keeping very strongly year-on-year. Our customers' flow business for trading also registered double-digit growth, contributed by the wholesale bank and, of course, the wealth business, which has been a standout in last year's financial performance. All in all, we delivered a strong financial performance. Expenses remain well managed at cost-to-income ratio of 40%. Credit quality remains sound, with NPL ratio stable at 0.9%. It's worthwhile to note that we have maintained this NPL ratio across seven quarters so far, and this despite the challenges we see in the market.
Looking forward in 2026, we expect market conditions to remain uncertain, with continued pressure from softening of interest rates. We expect a slight to moderate decline in net interest income, but we are still aiming for stable to growing total income. Loan growth is expected to be in the mid-single digit range, cost %. Credit costs, we expect it to remain benign at 20-25 basis points, but let's bear in mind that we are at the beginning of the year. I'm crystal ball gazing a little bit. 20-25 basis points is what we are guiding. We'll continue with our 50% ordinary dividend payout policy, but we will complete our earlier announced SGD 2.5 billion capital return plan by financial year 2026.
Next, I assume that with a new CEO in town, there will be interest to hear our new strategy, but if I'm wrong, please raise your hand, maybe I'll skip this section. When we craft our corporate strategy, there were two thoughts at the backdrop in our mind. One is a very deep Asian insights, having operated in this part of the world, in ASEAN and Greater China, for almost a century. With this deep insight, given the challenges in the marketplace, we want to leverage these insights to capture new opportunities. That's one thought behind the corporate strategy. The second is really with an eye to the future. In the 30 years I have been in the banking industry, I witnessed three transformation. First, internet banking. Second, digital mobile banking.
Now, with the rapid advancement of AI, we could be on the cusp of a third transformation. Actually, come to think of it, this could be the fourth, because when I joined the banking industry, there were still typewriters around, and we migrated to computer word processing. next page, please. We have identified five mega trends, and we group our thoughts into four strategic shifts to drive these mega trends: Asia, Tech, NetZero, and Franchise Shift, with ADD at the center. ADD stands for AI, Digital, and Data. Now, we could easily put AI in the center. There are some thought process behind that, and we deliberately choose ADD.
We don't think AI alone can give us all the synergy we want. We want to view it holistically using AI, digital, data, focusing on customer journey holistically, focusing on employee journey holistically to get the synergies we can get. We also think that the AI technology, some are more mature and can give us benefit, and we have already created synergies out of that. Agentic AI is a very promising field, and that can give us even more bang for buck. However, the technology may not be ready today, but it is a fast-advancing field. As a result, our focus on customer journey, supported with a deliberate digital and data strategy, make us AI ready, so that when the AI technology is mature, as and when it's mature, we are plugging into our system. Next page, Asia Shift.
We want to capture opportunities from a rising Asia. Even though we may be carried away and be confused by the uncertainties in the marketplace, ASEAN is actually a good place to be in. We are seeing a rising Asia with rising intra-Asia trade, rising intra-Asia investments and wealth flows. Indeed, ASEAN is projected to become the fourth largest global economy as a bloc by 2030. We are very fortunate that our core markets, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, account for 60% of the GDP of ASEAN. If we include our branches in Vietnam and Thailand, we can cover 85% of the GDP in ASEAN. To do this effectively, to leverage our single branch presence besides our core market presence, we are working on digital solutioning, especially upgrading our transaction banking services, to provide one ASEAN value proposition to our customers.
We will continue to leverage our twin hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong to capture high net worth wealth flows. This is not a new strategy, it's an existing strategy. We have experienced high growth. We will continue to tap on this. Next. The second strategy shift is the technology shift. With advancement of technology, we have an opportunity to create a customer-centric ADD strategy, where we gain a better understanding of customer through technology in order to deliver to the right customers, the right products at the right time. We are going to make investments in this area and grow big. We have also been very successful in identifying and expanding our coverage of TMT sector in the last few years. We have managed to register double-digit growth in the past few years.
We managed to ride on the AI tailwinds to finance digital infrastructure, such as data center, but we are also in financing the tech supply chain. The third strategic shift, Net Zero shift. Sustainability remains very important for us, and we will continue to help reduce carbon emissions by financing renewables and greening our industries, including support for SMEs. If you really think about the content of that sentence, it means that we are trying to make a difference to the environment. The fourth strategic shift, Franchise Shift. This is a very big slide because it attempt to cover our four core markets. For this briefing, we have distilled the slide to focus our discussion on the several big ideas. We have twin hubs, and we have the ASEAN domestic markets.
In Singapore, we are unique compared to other competitors, that we have the full capabilities in OCBC, Bank of Singapore, and Great Eastern. This gives us a unique opportunity to deliver what we call the whole-of-wealth value propositions across banking, wealth, and insurance. If you want, you can quote us as the WOW strategy. We have product capabilities under each of our wealth units, and each of them have their respective customer base. Under the whole-of-wealth initiative, we want to have a much more integrated and coordinated effort in delivering our services to the whole-of-wealth continuum. To underline the importance of the whole-of-wealth strategy, we have set up a wealth management committee starring Greg, Sunny, and Jason, and myself, too. I don't know whether they'll give me a starring role or I'm going to be a supporting actor.
I'll be chairing the Wealth MC because it's a really important initiative for us. Hong Kong is a gateway city for Greater China flows, that positioning has not changed. It is also an affluent city. We want to grow the affluent segment in Hong Kong. Last year, OCBC Premier Banking in Hong Kong grew 70% year-on-year. Hong Kong is a financial hub, we also want to scale up our Hong Kong global market business, this is a really important initiative. Like I emphasize, we are trying to crystallize and distill the ideas for easy presentation, when it appears here, it's actually really important. In Malaysia, under ASEAN domestic markets, Great Eastern's customer base, you may not be totally aware, the customer base of Great Eastern Malaysia is almost the size of half of Singapore's population.
The bank and Great Eastern in Malaysia can work together to deliver value propositions to the customer base. It's an immense opportunity here. For Malaysia, we are also very excited about the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, given our presence on both sides of the causeway. We have already financed more than MYR 15 billion worth of projects. We have four branches in Johor Bahru to serve our customers. They are seeing very good business flows. Indonesia. Indonesia is a very big and vast market. We'll be embarking on a digital visitor journey to serve this market effectively. Although we have more than 200 branches in Indonesia, we don't think it is sufficient to cover such a big marketplace.
We also aim to extend our OCBC Indonesia services to the wealth customers to move them to cover the higher end of the wealth spectrum. As part of our whole wealth strategy, to help OCBC Indonesia differentiate its value propositions as it move up to the higher end of the wealth spectrum, it can tap on the insights and capabilities of Bank of Singapore. I wanted to illustrate with some real-life example of what is meant by the whole of wealth strategy. As an integrated financial services group, we are able to address the need of seniors across the entire year wealth continuum, and this is very important as Singapore enter a super aged society this year.
If you look at the 3 columns, on the left, for seniors who need simple banking needs, we have OCBC Senior Care with special deposit rates and OCBC CARE Ambassadors to assist. In the center, for business owner and ultra high net worth, they have other considerations, such as a smooth transition of business leadership for family business to the next generation. High net worth families also are very concerned about preservation of wealth and how to do the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Great Eastern is able to provide protection as well as annuity income for seniors. This is just examples of the wealth product services we can bring to the table as an integrated financial services group. Interestingly, if you look at the left-hand side, smart tax resizing in the OCBC app, it's actually quite important.
When we announced this feature, I have a lot of friends texting me and congratulating me on this feature because they think that this is exactly what they need. I think this also suggests to you the age group of my friends. Next, somehow I feel very compelled to talk about gold in current, in the current climate. We have actually embarked under the leadership of myself since last year to come up with a comprehensive gold strategy. What you can see on the slide is a sample of our gold products. Again, we are trying to serve the whole wealth continuum. We have customers who have simpler banking needs, who are not used to gold investment. We have our OCBC app under our Consumer Financial Services, which allows a easy entry into gold investing.
They can buy 0.01 ounce of gold, as low as 0.01 ounce of gold. Translate to less than SGD 100 dollar investment in the CFS App. If you want to know the customer experience we have put in for this product, well, after the briefing, please don't do it now, but after the briefing, you can try out and buy SGD 100 or SGD 1,000 or SGD 10,000 dollar worth of gold in our App. There are customers who want to buy gold, but don't want the hassle of storing gold at home. Singapore, being a safe haven, is also an ideal place to store gold. We have launched a gold fund under Lion Global, which addresses this need. Right now, it's focused on large institutional investors and high net worth.
When the customers want to exchange the units for gold, they can do so. The final product I'll feature here is that we have launched an insurance product which combine protection with investment link plan for gold under Great Eastern. Next slide, please. We are forging ahead, in summary, with our new frontier of growth strategy. It is a very much a growth strategy, and because we are going to focus quite a lot on higher returning business, businesses which requires less capital to support the business, we expect stable to improve ROE. With this, I end my presentation.
All right, we will take questions. Maybe we start with the Journalists, and we'll come to the Analysts. Chanya.
Hi. Congratulations, OCBC, on your beat, and also wishing Teck Long for a very successful journey and leadership. Looking forward to writing more about you in future. I have two questions for you and one for Greg, since you are here. For your 3-year plan, you mentioned ROE. Could you give specific numbers? What kind of ROE you expect by the end of your implementation of the plans? Also, for excess capital with some Analyst or estimates at about SGD 2 billion, what's your share on capital management, whether how you are going to do this? Any extension of special dividend? Any M&A on the cards? Second question: you mentioned growing private banking in Indonesia. What's the opportunity there that you see? You mentioned high net worth, the higher end.
Also, please share your thoughts on the turmoil that the country is in, and how do you look to manage the situation? For Greg, I mean, Singapore just saw a record high single life policy issued here by your competitor. What are your plans on the high net worth segment?
Okay, firstly, that wasn't two questions. I count at least four question. We are at the early stage of implementing the new corporate strategy. I think we are not ready to share the ROE, but directionally, we have positioned it, we have planned for it to be uplifting the ROE. As we execute the strategy, we will probably be more comfortable to share more insights. Second, on the excess capital, we have a new strategy, and the new strategy is very much focused on growth, so we need the capital to support the growth. Although I did talk a lot about the wealth business, the loan book remains important, and we do have a couple of businesses which is focused on the loan book, such as, for example, financing tech, financing sustainability, and we intend to continue to grow as much as we can.
With our growth strategy, we will need capital at this point in time. I will also point out that we use our insights to capture opportunities, but the world actually has a challenging environment. In fact, right now, a simple question as, what is the trade tariff being levied by banks, by the U.S., is also very uncertain. Nobody even really know how you will land and how you evolve. Given such a climate, we also want to hedge the downside by making sure we have a strong capital position. When the downturn happen, we also want to take the opportunity to acquire things, where it fits our corporate strategy. Yeah, in short, we will stick with our dividend policy of 50%, and we will complete our capital return as sized in 2026.
For future dividend, it's still a 50% dividend policy, but with a growth strategy, it can translate higher dividend even though it's a 50% dividend policy. You have a question on the turmoil on Indonesia, correct? See, I listened to all your questions very carefully. Turmoil. I would say Indonesia, we have been there for 80 years. We have seen up and down. We are a long-term player. We continue to be invested and is very committed to the Indonesian market. It also appears in my strategy as part of the ASEAN domestic market. I spoke about it being a very big market. I spoke about, you know, the potential for us to use physical-digital model to continue to grow market share. The turmoil may be there, but we will continue to execute our strategy.
In terms of moving up the spectrum for the high-end customers, I think Indonesia is a market where we don't want to say the customer is either a high net worth or a PPC type or Premier, because actually, the behavior of customers, there's quite a bit overlap. A customer could be a high net worth, and they could have overseas wealth investments, but they also have wealth domestically to deploy. Because the market is very large, there's still a slice of customers which we can aim to target to grow our wealth business at the higher end of the wealth continuum. Have I answered the question, all your questions? I think so. Yeah. Thank you.
I'll pick up on the Great Eastern question around high net worth. Quite a timely question, actually. Yeah, we see this as a very significant opportunity for Great Eastern. It's a segment that we've probably been underweight in historically. It's been a very fast-growing segment, obviously, and particularly here in Singapore, given the international financial center status. You'll be hearing more from us next week, actually, on our high net worth strategy. We will be launching the first phase of that to the market, so we will be announcing something next week, so I can't talk about it in detail now. You'll see the first evolution of Great Eastern really focusing on that segment. Why?
Because we have a large number of customers that we serve already that have those needs, and obviously, I operate within a group that has a private bank and a very large retail and commercial bank with a lot of wealthy customers, and we want to be serving those needs more effectively. Working more closely with the parts of the bank to bring best-of-breed solutions, not just on insurance, but in investments as well, to our client base, as well as the bank's client base. It's a big opportunity. You will be seeing a lot more of Great Eastern in this space, and you will hear more about that next week.
Yong Hong, please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, good morning. Happy Lunar New Year. This is Yong Hong from Citi. I just have three questions, two on capital and one on your new strategy. Firstly, on capital, the 14% target CET1 ratio wasn't in the deck, and it's back in. Just wondering, how do we reconcile this 14% CET1 ratio with your new strategy, which appears to be across capital light business? You also talk about conserving some capital for M&A. How much capital or any ballpark number will be helpful just to understand how much will be conserved for M&A? Maybe I'll ask my second question later.
Okay, that will be your third and fourth question, not seco nd. The first question is our target CET1 in the near term, we are still aiming for 14%. I think it really depends on how we execute our strategy and the market environment. If we grow very fast, we actually will need more capital to support. On M&A opportunities, we are always keen to look at M&A opportunities, as long as there's a strategic fit. But it's very difficult to say how much we set aside for M&A because it really depends on the size of the opportunity. We'll look at the opportunity as and when required, and our capital position then.
Yep. Maybe the second question, again, on your SGD 2.5 billion capital return. SGD 1.4 billion-SGD 1.5 billion is done by specials, SGD 225 million done via buybacks, leftover of SGD 800 million or about SGD 0.18 per share. This time you didn't talk about 60% payout ratio like what you did last year. Any high-level view on how this SGD 800 million remaining capital can be returned? Because if we're thinking about OCBC profits growing year-on-year, your payout ratio will be above 60%.
We'll continue to execute our share buyback plan in FY 2026. If we did not acquire as many shares as we would like to, we will return capital via special dividend.
Yep. I think on buyback previously, it was communicated that basically, at maybe one year ago, the current multiples, it may be more beneficial for shareholders as dividends. Just wondering your thinking on balancing buyback and dividends.
My preference is that, between return capital via share buyback versus special dividend, I have preference for special dividend.
Yep. Maybe just one final question, to wrap up the strategy.
maybe I want to kind of like add on. I haven't finished my reply. Sorry.
Sorry.
If you really think about our shareholding base, we have a lot of long-term shareholder. I think a special dividend actually rewards our shareholders, you know, in a broader, in a broader way. If we do share buyback, basically it's, you know, shareholders who return the shares back to the bank. I think there's a slight difference in terms of thinking. We really want to reward all our long-term shareholder base.
Yep. Maybe just one more questions to wrap up the strategy. You talk about many non-interest income opportunities across OCBC Bank, Great Eastern, and also Bank of Singapore. Any high-level numbers or target that we can think about for non-interest income in the near term or in the longer term, and how does that translate into higher ROE for your long-term targets? Yep, these are all my questions. Thank you.
We are aiming for double-digit growth in non-interest income. If you think about our guidance just now, we expect loan business to be mid-single digit. We have calibrated the deposit business to what we need for loan business so that we don't overpay for deposits, at least for the high-cost deposit, such as FD. The second. If you look at the mix, if we are growing non-interest income at a pace of double digit for wealth, and then even for the wholesale bank, we are still aiming high single digit to double digit as well. The mix will change, and therefore, it will help us in the returns.
Okay.
Thank you.
I will go to Ravilka from Bloomberg.
Hi. Hi, Teck L ong. Congratulations. I'm Ravilka with Bloomberg. I have a question for you on AI. You've been adding RMs to drive wealth growth. As AI and digital tools become more embedded, do you see that hiring pace continuing, or will there be a point where technology starts to replace some of the roles in the bank?
Okay. That is the assuming if the business don't grow. We intend to grow our business, and we intend to grow in all the segments of wealth, whether it's Premier, PBC or the high-net-worth business. Because of this, some of the businesses, such as high-net-worth business, is you require attention to the customers. You require the human touch. We'll use AI to help them to do their job better so that they can become more productive. In the Bank of Singapore business, for example, we have already implemented AI, which helps to shorten the time taken and be more efficient in the curation for the KYC assessment. That has been very helpful with the from that perspective for the RMs. The answer is yes, as we use more AI.
Technology, the ADD strategy, we will address the lower end of the wealth spectrum more effectively. That may not require a lot more hiring in RMs, but in the mid to a high end of the spectrum, the human touch is absolutely necessary.
Okay. Thank you. Can I also just ask a quick follow-up? Which part of the bank is furthest along on AI adoption? You know, where are you seeing the biggest impact on productivity so far?
Sorry, can you repeat please?
Where are you seeing the biggest impact on productivity so far due to the automation? Like which.
Oh, that means our benefit?
Yeah.
When we approach the AI, when we approach it from an AI angle, we look at every opportunity. It's quite across the board, we look at opportunities. For Gen AI, we use it for some of the grunt work where, you know, we can save RM time. We have done that in the Wholesale Bank, we have done that in the Private Bank. This, we have done it. In the technology side, we also use AI to accelerate our writing of codes to make it simpler and faster.
Let's go to Harsh next.
Hi. Thanks, Teck Long, Happy New Year. 3 questions, if I may. First is provisions, guidance of 20-25 basis points. What is driving that? It is slightly higher than last 2 years. Any particular segment or segments that worries you? I'll have follow-up after that.
I will take this question first before your next question. The 20-25 basis point, we are crystal ball gazing at the beginning of the year, is through the cycle credit cost, which we anchor our thinking. We hope to do better than that. If you look at the risk spot currently, obviously, we continue to monitor and track the Hong Kong portfolio for real estate. We have been tracking and actively managing it for the last 2 years. What you see is the outcome of our active management. At the same time, we also managed to lift our provision to asset coverage, provision to NPA coverage to 150%. That's pretty high compared to the market average.
All right, thanks. The second one is on the 14%, the CET1. By when?
Well, it depends on how fast we deliver the targets under the new corporate strategy. Well, over the next couple of years is what we are thinking of.
You think in next two years, by end of 2027, you can get from 15.1%-14%?
Okay, I want to be a little bit more measured in the response. I think over the next... When we say high growth, it really depend on what we can achieve. As you have heard, some of the businesses we measure achieve 70% growth. There are many other businesses in the corporate strategy, especially those which are a refresh on the current strategy, where we acquire a skill like technology, we actually grow at north of 20% or even 30%. Therefore, we will need the capital to acquire, to support the growth. I can't really give you a timing, but certainly in the faster we achieve some of this growth target, the faster you reach the 14%.
Right. I guess the question is just, Teck Long, that, okay, that is the organic aspiration. If for whatever reason, let's say organically, let's say you end up growing in the less capital-intensive segments, is there still a commitment that you will get to 14% CET1 by a particular time frame? How do we understand that 14% number? Is it just an aspirational number, or is it a number that you are committing to deliver by a particular date?
It is a target number. We don't have a fixed timeline to say that we need to get to 14%, because that's not realistic in real life, especially when you throw in M&A opportunities and, you know, the way the whole environment is working. We are committed to the 14% over the next few years, but we don't have a concrete timeline for it.
All right, thanks. The last one, if I may, you touched on M&A. What kind of gaps in the overall franchise, as you would have gone through the different businesses, either geography or business, where, let's say, over the next couple of years, you would want to supplement with some kind of inorganic opportunities? Any kind of details you can talk about broadly, that'd be great. Thanks a lot.
Okay. In terms of geography footprint, we are very committed to our twin hub and ASEAN domestic strategy. If the right portfolio come along, we will be very keen in these markets. Stay in this part of the world.
go to Ultra, Anshuman Daga from Reuters.
I. Thank you. I have two questions. The first one is, your assessment on the latest Trump situation, especially following the court tariff ruling. Do you see, like, a better or improving environment going forward? The second question, interestingly, is on your gold product launches. Just wanna get your, just wanna get more details on, is it something new that has just been launched? If yes, how has the reception by the customers has been? The other thing, I would presume that OCBC has a physical vault of gold, right? Just for this product. Lastly, I wanna get your view on, broadly on the gold as a outlook on gold. Thank you.
Okay. This is a, this is a very difficult and as well as easy question, which I said so in the past, when it comes to trying to predict President Trump's policy. I have always maintained that the trade tariff situation has not worked its way to whole, the whole economy. Part of the reason is because, you know, the supply chain take time to absorb that. More importantly, is actually since Liberation Day until now, trade tariffs has been changing, and it's not quite settled globally. It does affect a lot of investment decision, so we are still in uncertain time. What I really want to focus is are the fundamentals, and this is where we come in with a position of strength. We have strong balance sheet, we know our location well, we are very forward-looking with our deployment of ADD.
Using this, we are actually looking for opportunities, you know, to help our customers, to help grow our business. I want to point to last year's outcome. If you look at last year's outcome, aside from the wealth business, if you look at the loan business, we expanded high single-digit %. On the constant currency basis, we almost approached double-digit %. We are able to navigate this environment quite well. Having said that, I still want to be cautious because the environment changes so quickly, just like what happened in the second quarter. We never expect HIBOR to take a dive trip all the way down, and then resurface up again, right? 300 basis point overnight is a very big movement. Your second question is relating to gold.
We had some gold products in the past, but last year we became very concerted about our gold strategy. In terms of the numbers, I'll invite our wealth heads to share some of the outcome.
Yeah, maybe I can provide a little bit of context. We have gold trading on our app since 2024. In 2025, we grew 8 times. For the first 2 months of this year, we're almost at last year's level already. We do not have physical gold. We don't do physical gold in the OCBC, and so this is... Because I think it's a lot of, it's very cumbersome for customers to buy, to sell back the gold, and the gold has to be intact in the wrapping and all these things. I think we, and we, through the studies, we see there are a segment of customers who prefer to just buy on the app, right? Because they just want to enjoy the price appreciation of the gold.
That is a very hassle-free and convenient way, and you can do it at anywhere, 24/7. At night, you feel like buying, you just buy off the app itself. Thank you.
I will supplement that, the OCBC app is very user-friendly. Although I talk about, like, the hurdle to invest is set low, but actually, customers who could be higher net worth may also use this app to buy because of the sheer convenience. Of course, they also may buy even bigger amounts through the RMs. For gold, the reason why we decided to focus on gold last year was also because we saw some trends. We saw central banks buying, we saw a lot of retail investors' interest, we saw a lot of debasement trade as well. Yeah. You want to say something, Ken?
Yeah. Just to add on, currently, as Teck Long and Sunny alluded to, our gold offering is unallocated, so paper gold, and that's being offered on our online platforms or through voice as well. We also offer that 24 by 7. Even after the gold market closes, after New York hours, we continue to offer pricing to our customers over the weekend. That is the unallocated gold. Now, in terms of how we are approaching our gold strategy is twofolds. Basically, one is custody on-chain and out-of-chain, right? The out-of-chain business is something that requires a bit more thought, because that involves basically retail clients buying gold and taking it out.
From that point, from that perspective, we feel that our current offering is adequate enough, and we've actually been gaining a lot of traction in terms of just offering paper gold for that. That's something we are continuing to explore to see whether it makes sense. The custody on-chain business, that's where we're gonna be offering physical gold, and that's mainly to institutional clients, and that's also to high-net-worth clients. Your question to us, do we have a vault? We have a vault with our custodians, because in terms of offering, you know, allocated gold, physical gold, to institutions, you probably need to custodize that with reputable custodians today. Yeah.
We'll take a question online. Nick, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Hi, Teck Long. Sorry, it's Nick from Morgan Stanley. Hopefully, you can hear me in New York. Congratulations on the results. Couple of questions from me. First of all, I just wonder if you could talk a little bit more about your Malaysia wealth strategy. Sounds quite interesting. I'd just interesting how you're thinking specifically you're tying together sort of three bits of the business to deliver on that. Second link to that, I mean, obviously, you've done a big review of wealth, and I'd like you to just explain to us how you think you are competitively positioned, especially in the Bank of Singapore space. You know, what makes me become a client of Bank of Singapore rather than, say, a Standard Chartered or a, you know, a DBS, for example?
Then, just finally, a small question. I noticed a big uptick of the dividend from Great Eastern yesterday. I just wondered if you could talk about sort of dividend policy at Great Eastern and, you know, how you're thinking about getting capital out of Great Eastern and into the bank?
Sorry, what was your last bit? That means how do we get.
Great Eastern's dividend. Great Eastern dividend stepped up quite nicely. I think it almost doubled yesterday, full year. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about sort of capital policy for Great Eastern and how you're thinking of getting capital out of Great Eastern and into Bank.
Okay. Yeah, I'll leave the easier question for Jason and Greg. For Malaysia, we are re-energizing our consumer financial services. We want to target the Premier all the way to the higher end of the wealth continuum. In Malaysia, currently, we have a lot of competitive advantage because G actually services a customer base equal to half of Singapore's population. That will keep us really very busy thinking on how to deliver value proposition to the customer base. We must bear in mind that in all the wealth business, we need to segment the customers and understand the need of the customer in order to deliver the correct journey. This is our thinking in Malaysia to give us an edge.
Under the whole wealth initiative, the other units of the bank, such as Bank of Singapore, which actually publishes their insights and their strategic allocation of asset view, will also be helpful to grow our wealth business in Malaysia. I will ask Jason to address the question on how competitive he is, and he said, "Fine, yes." Jason, please.
I don't necessarily think it's the easier question, but I will try nonetheless. Thank you very much for the question. For the Bank of Singapore, we've spent the last 3 years really building out our intellectual capital and our thought leadership. In 2024, we convened a Global Advisory Council to identify super trends, which our clients have been able to capitalize and build on, things like digital infrastructure, AI, trends that we hope our clients will benefit for multi years. Teck Long did talk about a strategic asset allocation model, which we've developed proprietary to Bank of Singapore, which we will make available also over time to the OCBC ecosystem in general.
We also have a best-in-class transaction engine with pricing and speed capability that is probably top of the market right now. I really feel confident that clients who bank with us also get the benefit of Bank of Singapore's intellectual advice and investment capability. Plus, with the backing of OCBC, they have an access to a broader array of services, both on the corporate side, where needed, and obviously, over insurance and banking capabilities. I think, combine all of that, we've got a very strong proposition to stand out amongst all the other private banks.
Do you want me to cover that?
Just on the Great Eastern dividend policy. We have a progressive dividend policy, so we won't go backwards based on the dividend we paid this last year. Even if it's a volatile year going forward, shareholders are gonna get this at least the same as what they got previously. Our policy is actually to move progressively up to 50% payout. We will be paying out more as we go forward. Obviously, we will be looking at opportunities to deploy that capital. We will be looking to grow the business substantively over the next few years. We will be investing significantly in the business, so we will be using that capital to grow the business in organically, and we are also looking at inorganic options, as Teck Long mentioned earlier.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
F rom Business Times.
Good morning, and a happy new year to everybody. I just have a few questions on the wealth management side. firstly, it's on the new sort of wealth management committee that the CEO talked about. Maybe you can just share why setting up this committee is important and more of the thinking behind it. Second question is on the whole of wealth strategy. Does this also mean basically we might see a more concerted effort in cross-selling across all the different parts of OCBC? Does this mean changes in perhaps how teams work or how teams work together across the different parts of the bank? Thank you.
Answering the second question first, yes, indeed, you'll be on a much more concerted effort working across the whole group. Right now, there's a lot of collaboration already which exists within the group. A lot of the product owners and the customer segment owners have been collaborating. What we really want is to be even more ambitious and think about the whole group as in not just Singapore, not just in-country collaboration, but also a global collaboration. I think that's one big change. The wealth business is a complicated business. Sometimes we think in simplistic term, high-net-worth, PPC, premier. You know, actually in real life, it kind of overlap because some high-net-worth customers would prefer to be in PPC.
Some premier are premier only because, you know, we haven't managed to get their AUM from the other banks yet. it's a whole spectrum. Now, in any mentioned construct, tone from the top is very important. With this Wealth MC, we will have a coordinated tone from the top, where the three wealth head will jointly lead wealth initiatives, which cuts across the whole group. Whether is it getting the benefit or ADD strategy, whether is it get the benefit of new product launches, whether is it mutual support for products, like for example, we have high net worth strategy, which Greg just spoke about for GE. You can just imagine the potential if you take what they have.
Of course, he hasn't reviewed the full plan yet. I shall refrain to talk a little bit more. It's very exciting. The way I look at it, when I evaluate the plan for high net worth for Great Eastern, I can see so much synergy with Bank of Singapore customers. Well, wealth is important, but at some point in time, health is also important. This is a teaser for the future, yet-to-be-launched high net worth strategy. In short, everything start from leadership. That's our belief. We have set up the leadership correctly to make sure that we have a tighter and more coordinated approach to wealth, to deliver value to the customer.
If I can add on a little bit, I think in the past, we would look at customers from our own business perspective, then we tend to collaborate. I think what we are doing things now is we look at the customer and how all of us can chip in and make the customer experience to be seamless. Customer move through different life stages. I think it's important that we are there to cater the customer journey from end to end, all, we just take a look and see how can we chip in and make customer the center of everything that we do, instead of just looking at our own business perspective. Yeah.
Can I share something a little bit more? BAU. On a BAU basis, all the wealth units have their own system and processes, reengineering to get more efficiency and productivity. With the Wealth MC, you'll be much more coordinated, even in systems investments, so that will also give us benefit. If all the Wealth MC members decide to do certain things, then we can start to plan which unit go first, which is the one which can get the most bang for buck, and then after that, roll it out. We can test new products with certain customer segment across some of the units before we roll out to the broader customer base. There are a lot of synergies, beyond like, you know, let's just go for a coordinated strategy with the middle management working with middle management.
I think this is really the tone from the top.
We'll take another question online. Melissa, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Hi there. Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I just have a follow-up on the wealth to be the first question. I think you talk a lot about it, and there's a strong focus. Maybe just put it into numbers for us. What are you thinking in terms of your AUM target growth or your fee growth? You know, you talk a lot about the revenue synergies, and you know, moving on that part, but will there be cost synergies as we work together? That's my first question.
We are not ready to talk about the AUM target outflows, but if you look at our revenue target, we continue to aim for double-digit growth in wealth. It's underpinned, obviously, by AUM flows as well, and transaction volume based on the AUM. Now, would there be synergies, cost synergies across the wealth group? The answer is yes. When we develop system, a lot of the systems into this world, we think about microservices. As we create microservices, we can then use that and replicate it across the wealth unit and also, where it's applicable, across the whole OCBC greater group. I think there's a cost synergy as well.
We will also be thinking about the human resource, how to equip them correctly, to make sure that we have the ideal mix of product specialists and the RM. Quite a lot of synergies there in terms of cost synergies.
Right. Thank you. maybe just in terms of some, housekeeping questions first. On the NII, guidance, I think at the bottom of the deck, it says that you are looking for SORA at about 1.4%, NII then won't decline. Given where SORA is today, and if SORA stays at this levels today, does it mean there will be more downside for NII, or are you protected, from some of the hedges that you have put in place?
I answer. Currently, we have a house view on SORA. We know that SORA is a little bit low now. The house view is that SORA could retrace, so it's at 1.4% assumption. If SORA is below 1.4%, there'll be downside risk to our revenue expectation.
All right. Okay, thank you. Then lastly, maybe just a quick one from you. In terms of your strategy, I mean, just to be a bit picky on it, you said stable to rising ROEs. Just wanted to understand the risk or the thoughts on where and or how or why we would be stable in any case, in the next, say, in the two, three-year phase?
Actually, currently, the bank's still digesting the effect of NIM compression, that is a big uncertainty. That's why we are a little bit cautious. Despite the uncertainty, if you just look at our guidance for 2026, we are still aiming to grow total income. Now, the NIM compression has a direct impact on ROE, that's why we are a little bit more reserved. Otherwise, as a corporate strategy, we'll just say that we can lift the ROE. It's really the NIM environment which is uncertain.
Right. Maybe if I can sneak in just one last one. I think Great Eastern said that they will be looking for rising dividend numbers, DPS numbers on a, on a, on a total basis. Any thoughts on the group for OCBC as well? Do you think that we can also have, other than the 50% payout, a step on rising DPS?
I think for 2026, we have our ordinary share dividend. We probably will be looking at share dividend, you know, moving from a share buyback to special dividend if we cannot complete the share buyback. The dividend policy remains at 50%. If we grow our revenue, if we grow our profit, that 50% should translate to a higher dividend. Our policy remains unchanged. In fact, what we aim is to steer a steady ship through this choppy water, whether is it capital position, whether is it the way we do loan business. Maybe we have not been selling ourselves about how well we have done, for example, in the loan business. Challenging market, we managed to be higher than system average growth in the last few years.
Despite the challenge in Greater China, you don't really see our NPR rate going up. You see provisions. You know, in fact, we also took the opportunity to increase our ECL2 and trust that, you know, our provisions right now is 1.5 x of the NPA. For those who might not be so familiar with this ratio, NPA is the whole non-performing asset. Our non-performing asset, especially when it comes to real estate, is typically also secure, so you wouldn't lose the whole loan. We don't need to go there because, you know, we are already at 1.5 x of NPA. If you really think about the whole thinking, actually, we have done very well.
All right. Thank you very much.
Okay, can we have Goola from The Edge, please?
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations on your good results. I'm also happy to hear that you prefer special dividends to share buybacks, because the Analysts love share buybacks.
That's on my end, at least.
Okay. I have, well, two separate top- questions on two separate topics. First, on the NPAs, which you've done very well on your credit costs and versus what your peers have reported. What differentiates your sort of credit risk management from your peers? That's the first question. The second question is that in terms of your, you know, you've got a capital light focus in your new frontier strategy. I'm just wondering whether, I mean, I know ROEs are difficult over this year because of the NIM compression, but, you know, in the next two years or three years, could you get to the mid teens or towards where your previous bank got to? You know, the second- that's the second question.
The third question is, you know, the first time we mentioned the word, China, was what you just said a moment ago. There appears to be a Geographic shift to ASEAN from Greater China, because there was a sort of, what, Greater Bay Area focus previously. I'm just wondering, what are you looking at? I mean, I know you've talked about it, but are you looking at, in terms of organic opportunities, but what about, inorganic opportunities? Does your ASEAN shift include that? There's three questions.
Just a matter of clarification, you are referring to inorganic shift in China?
No, I'm referring to the inorganic... I mean, you've got a shift to ASEAN-
Yes
A ppears in
Yes, that's right.
Y our frontier.
Is there any inorganic opportunity there that you're looking at?
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, I cannot comment on other banks' credit policy. For us, we took a very conservative view. We have been observing ahead, slightly ahead of the. If I were to judge based on the questions relating to Hong Kong CRE as a thermometer on the, you know, focusing on the issues there for real estate, actually, even before that started, we had started to take positive action. We had actually stopped growing the higher risk segment and de-gear that part. Our growth in Hong Kong, you will see that we are still growing, but we are focusing on loans to quality customers. Secondly, when it comes to provisioning, we have been. The way we managed our cases, we have been very proactive in downgrading the cases.
as we downgrade the case, our system is such that ECL2 would also increase. automatically, there's a buffer zone even before it go to ECL3. where the situation warrants, we were downgraded to, into ECL3 and have more provisionings, and that provisioning is quite conservative. this is how we have been managing it. Our peers, I cannot really comment. on the, on the second question, help me along. You were talking about capital light and NIM compression? Okay. Compared to the peer. Okay. I want to be very grounded in the way we think about strategy. We are at the start of executing our strategy.
I think in one year time, we will have a better picture on what works well, what works really very well, and then maybe at that point in time, we also the NIM impact, digested, then maybe we are more ready to share some thoughts on what could be a guided CET1, what could be a guided ROE. Yes. Okay, the next question is, you have pick up the messages. Thanks for picking up the messages. Indeed, there's a pivot to focus on ASEAN domestic market. Hong Kong remains important to us, so like what I mentioned, what we have done in that slide relating to Franchise Shift is a very big slide. We did not include a lot of the BAU stuff, which we are also gaining momentum.
Like, for example, loan growth in Hong Kong, despite the challenge, we managed to also keep the loan. I mean, it's a bit slower growth than the rest of our franchise, we also managed to grow our loan franchise there. We also managed to grow our fee franchise across the wholesale bank, across the wealth business. Our fee growth in Greater China, in Global Markets, is also double-digit from customers flow. Very good set of results. I just did not have time to go into detail. Hong Kong is important. ASEAN, there's huge opportunity for us. If there's any inorganic opportunity in ASEAN, we will certainly want to take a look.
Let's go to Jayden for the next question.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I just wanted to clarify on the SGD 2.5 billion to be returned, completed this year. Can I just confirm that the remaining amount is in the low SGD 700 million? I think Yong Hong mentioned SGD 800 million, but I had a different number. I think you've made it very clear that you prefer special dividends. Would you sort of look at spacing that out, or would it all come at the end of the year if you don't do the buyback? Because I guess we've become accustomed to seeing it sort of sequentially, so it'd be great to see that consistency. We'd be keen for your thoughts. My second question is just on the strategy, which was very helpful.
You've sort of kept the guidance, so at pretty consistent costs. I just wanted to know if any of the strategy is gonna require any significant investment. Like, would there be a period where the costs would be higher in anticipation of better revenues and better growth later on? It'd be good to understand the thinking on that. Thanks very much.
Okay, Chin, you want to take the question on the share? Yeah.
Yeah, Jayden, You asked about the share buyback remaining portion, whether it's SGD 700 million or SGD 800 million. It's about SGD 780 million, because we have done 22% of the SGD 1 billion. Is that okay?
Just the timing. Like, when would you... You know, if you don't actually. Because you've been buying back based on market conditions, right?
Yeah.
If you don't actually deploy it, would you do a special in the first half?
Yeah, we mentioned that remaining of that SGD 780 million, if we do not continue to execute our share buyback for cancellation, we will return that in the form of dividend by financial year 2026.
Thank you, Chin.
Mm.
On the execution of strategy, yes, we are the on-sale execution of a new strategy. We have a refreshed ADD strategy. ADD strategy is about strategy. It's also about culture. It's also about how do we get value out of our ADD efforts in a more concrete manner, shall we say, right? So that we have visibility, right? There will be investments required, but we are cognizant of the trade-off between cost-to-income ratio during its gestation period. Perhaps in during the gestation period, we will have slightly higher cost-to-income ratio, but we keep an eye on it. In my last slide, I actually also explicitly state that we will keep the cost-to-income ratio within a certain range, so we could base our investments, for example. I mean, there's a trade-off, right?
We will do that trade-off to make sure the cost-income ratio, maybe a couple of percentage point for investments, but we don't want to deviate from the 40%-45% guidance.
Okay, thanks very much.
Okay, we'll take the last question online. Please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Hi, Teong. Thanks for taking my question. I just have two very quick questions. The first one is on, just wanted to hear your thoughts on GE and whether there's a need to pursue another buyout in the near term, given how you've been talking about GE as being an important part of your wealth strategy going forward. Second question is on whether there's any exposure to private credit, both your direct lending and indirect through the wealth management distribution business. Maybe some rough numbers on the % of AUM in private credit would be very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. For GE, we have initiated the exercise and complete the exercise to buy more shares in GE or even to privatize it. That is a chapter behind us already. We will not be looking at acquiring more GE shares in the foreseeable future. Secondly, we today own 93.7% of GE. That's good enough for us to collaborate within the group. At this level, we don't feel the need to increase the share just for the collaboration. On private credit, we have been circumspect about private credit in Asia. If you really think about it, the biggest market for private credit is in the United States. We don't indulge in that space.
In Asia, while there are a lot of private credit outfit being set up and so on and so forth, we think we know Asia the best. We have not embarked on any private credit strategy, just that we took on risk assets. Private credit is not part of. We don't have private credit exposure here in our book today. On the AUM front, I think it's less about AUM, it's about us having, because of the demand for certain high-net-worth customers, we might have some private credit funds on the shelf for the customers to invest if they choose to. Yeah.
Thank you, Teong.
Thank you.
Okay, we have one more minute. If any Analysts have a question, we, guess we can take that, because there were many hands earlier. Sorry, you wanna go ahead?
Hi, Sukriti Bansal from Bank of America. Just a quick one on the wealth. I mean, extremely strong growth expected on back of a strong 2025 base at double-digit. Just wanted to understand a little bit where the net new money, like, which pockets is it coming more from, and where do we expect this to continue coming from, in addition to the synergies, of course, that we see?
It's actually quite broad-based. Maybe I'll ask the wealth heads to share a little bit on the, on the net new money. Maybe it's can ask Sunny, you want to speak first or Jason?
Yeah. I think we Quarter four, we saw SGD 6 billion of our net new money, and we end up the year with SGD 27 billion on net new money. As shared, I think it's very broad-based. I think basically, some of the things that we do are also about engaging our customers and deepening the relationship. For example, I think, we are attracting customers by making our payments, very efficient. In fact, if you take a look at our mobile app, we have, 10 wallets that we have added, the most number of a wallet you can see in Southeast Asia, meaning you can transfer money to 10 wallets in the region. Also, look at scan and pay capabilities. In China, we have, Alipay, UnionPay, and Weixin Pay.
We are the only bank that has the most comprehensive payment. I think it is strategies like this that we are engaging customers. We give them a reason to put more money with us by putting money inside there, and they also give us the opportunity to cross-sell into them. The other thing that we do also is, look at the Senior Care. We launched a Senior Care, and, you know, this elderly, this group of customers tend to be sort of neglected in the way that you can't really sell them too much things. We, coming from a super aged country that we are coming in 2030, I think this is an opportunity whereby we really want to engage this group of customers, and there's a whole four main pillars that we are in trying to engage them.
We do see customer moving money here as well, and there are many opportunities that we can do with them. Yep. In fact, if I can add 1 more point. In Hong Kong, right, I think we've done very well. Teong had shared earlier, we, our wealth year up 70%. The year before was about close to 60% as well.
We also, and you can see that we are investing in Hong Kong. We have recently just unveiled our flagship branch in Queens Road Central. What we did there was, I think, we also brought the local SME there in the Old St. John. We are the first in Hong Kong, whereby in the retail bank it is a consumer bank branch with a retail concept. In our flagship branch in Hong Kong, we have about 100 sq ft of space dedicated for customers. Hong Kong people love Singapore pandan cake, we brought our Singapore SME there. It's the first of its kind in Hong Kong, in fact, it's gone viral in Hong Kong, right? A lot of customers are very impressed, there are queues forming up.
We're probably gonna give Jennis a run for his money in the queue as well, Jenny's Cookies. Thank you.
Maybe I'll just add on from the Bank of Singapore perspective. We found, especially with 2025, we've found a lot of clients deploying their excess cash into investments, so we did very well on the trading front as well. We found ourselves also being the primary kind of money manager for clients. A lot of clients have put large amounts of money for asset allocation with us and discretionary portfolio management, so our fee-based business has risen as well. I think we're trying to migrate ourselves, as I mentioned earlier, into the intellectual thought leadership space and being the main investment main bank for investments for clients in the future.
I think that's where we are looking to generate most of our revenues from.
Okay, with that.
Chin, can I have your permission to say something?
Sure, of course.
She controls the meeting, right? I just want to, in summary, say is that we are going to be very focused on growth. We are going to be very focused on the customer journey. All the digital data, these are tools to help the customer journey. Despite the challenges in the environment, we are still going to focus on growth because we believe our Asian insights really give us a competitive advantage to understand where the pockets of opportunities are. In summary, we are going to forge ahead with our new frontier of growth strategy. Chin, back to you.
With our next frontier of growth, that bringing us forward, I will end this morning's session. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Thank you.