United Overseas Bank Limited

Mr. Wee will first give a broad overview of how our franchise has performed and the operating landscape we are in. Mr. Leong will then go into more details on the financials and business performances from this quarter. After both presentations, we will be taking questions from the media. For the media who are joining us online, please use the raise hand function if you have a question. I would now like to invite CEO to get us started. Mr. Wee, please.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Since we last spoke, the global outlook has changed significantly. The world order has been disrupted by US terrorism. While it is too early to quantify the exact impact, we expect growth to slow in the near term. Amid uncertainties, the long-term fundamentals of ASEAN remain attractive. The region's competitive advantage in manufacturing and commodities will help ensure a relevant role as global supply chains rewind. Quick flows within ASEAN and between ASEAN and the rest of the world will continue to grow as countries seek new ways to prosper. While the road ahead may not be smooth, it will be We have strong balance sheets, capital and liquidity, a good reserve buffer to navigate these uncertain times. Our diversified earnings base continues to provide stability across economic and market cycles. In the first quarter of this year, EOB delivered a solid performance. Net profit was stable year on year at $1.5 billion. Growth was broad-based, supported by resilient income from lending, record fees, and higher trading and investment income. Our asset quality is healthy. With strong earnings this quarter, we are taking a conservative approach to increase our reserves. Given the uncertainties, we have been reshaping our business franchise with diversified client segments and products across our key markets. In the first quarter, we saw healthy demand across sectors and geographies, which boosted our loan books. Our loans grew 6% year on year. Net free income rose 20% year-on-year, led by record investment banking deals with strong growth in loan-related and wealth activities. Our wealth management business saw good traction. Most of our clients adopt conservative investment strategies with a focus on wealth reservations. We see higher fund flows into our discretionary portfolio management. Solutions, reflecting client trust in our ability to help them navigate market volatility. We were named Best Private Bank for DPM Asia and Singapore at the Euromoney Private Banking Awards for this year. This quarter, we also won several other prestigious awards. Global Finance named us as the Best Bank in Asia Pacific for second year. We will also name best bank in Malaysia. Separately, the Asian banker named us as the best SME bank in Singapore in 2025. We are encouraged by these recognitions and will continue to focus on supporting our customers in these volatile times. Looking ahead, the external environment is still fluid. We will resume guidance when the situation stabilizes. However, we remain committed to our 3 billion capital distribution plan. We have already commenced share buyback and the first tranche of 25 cents special dividend has been paid. Despite uncertainties, we see pockets of opportunities across our diversified portfolio. Trade flows in China-ASEAN and intra-ASEAN corridors are about US$1.5 trillion and growing, a trend that we expect to continue. We are well positioned to capture the flows from this structural shift. In fact, most of our trade finance lending continues to be done within the region, reflecting strong intra-regional activities. In the recent survey UOB conducted with 800 businesses in ASEAN and Greater China, two in three businesses expect intra-ASEAN trade to increase due to U.S. talent. They are planning to diversify sourcing tool within their own countries or in a region. There is also a growing demand for hedging from our clients amid current market volatilities. Meanwhile, we have a healthy pipeline of quality financing for infrastructure projects. This is not the first time that we have experienced volatilities and external shocks. We are confident in our ability to navigate the challenges just as we have done before in the past 90 years. We are fully committed to working closely with government and industry players to support our customers through these extraordinary times. Now, I will hand over to our new CFO, Yongqi, to share more. Thank you, Yichong.

Good morning, everyone. I'll take you through the financial update as per rest. If you look at our first quarter results for 2025, there was overall a strong quarter. we had broad-based income and franchise growth. The net profit was S$1.5 billion for this quarter with ROE at 12.3%. The net interest margin was stable at 2% and it was contributed by proactive balance sheet management despite margin pressures. Our net fee income grew to a new high of S$694 million This was largely driven by record loan fees from higher investment and banking revenues that CEO mentioned, as well as momentum in our wealth and card businesses. On treasury and investment income, we grew by 27% quarter on quarter. This came from strong activities from our clients and also relatively good performance in our trading and liquidity management activities. Asset quality remains stable with MPL ratio at 1.6%. And again, as CEO mentioned, given the macro uncertainties, we took a prudent stance to increase our general allowances to strengthen provision coverage, resulting in a total credit cost rising to 35 basis points this quarter. We are approaching the volatility in the market from a very strong tactical and funding position. However, our FT ratio remains at 15.5% and NSFR at 116%. On this page, we can spend a little bit more time to go into detail around the operating profits. We have increased the operating profit by 11% quarter on quarter and 7% from a year ago. However, as we set aside higher preemptive allowances, the net profit after tax declined 2% quarter on quarter, but stable year on year.