UOB

UOB: During his presentation at the AIC, UOB’s CFO provided an update of UOB’s performance and strategic priorities going forward. Most of the investor questions were focussed on Singapore property and UOB’s regional prospects. While UOB acknowledged further regulatory risks near term if the property prices continued to remain resilient, it remains confident on both near-term loan growth (driven by drawdowns from strong primary market sales through FY12) and overall asset quality. UOB expects overall NIMs to remain under pressure near term—regional NIMs unlikely to bottom soon, Singapore NIMs might take a few quarters to reflect better mortgage pricing and it might be too early to move securities to the longer end of the curve Overall, UOB continues to focus on better leveraging its regional businesses and see growth there —Malaysia should continue its steady growth, Indonesia currently in a consolidation phase will focus on quality growth and in Thailand, the grp is now looking to grow aggressively with more confidence on overall macro and all revamped systems mostly in place.