United Overseas Bank hailed at ABF Retail Banking Awards 2024 for trailblazing performance

Its strengthened franchise brings unrivalled regional perspective and reach to customers.

Banking company United Overseas Bank (UOB) has been honoured with several prestigious titles at the coveted ABF Retail Banking Awards 2024 for its continued success in scaling its retail banking business across ASEAN and building a best-in-class regional value proposition to capture the rising affluence and rapid digitalisation in ASEAN.

UOB’s acquisition of Citigroup's consumer banking businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (ASEAN-4) has doubled its retail franchise in these markets to over 8 million customers – accelerating UOB’s growth targets by five years and advancing UOB’s position as a leading ASEAN bank. With the successful migration of former Citigroup customers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand onto UOB’s platforms, UOB is on track to complete the operational integration for Vietnam in 2025.

The acquisition has built stronger resilience in UOB’s business model with increased geographic and revenue mix diversification. With Citigroup’s portfolio more geared towards the cards business and unsecured lending alongside UOB’s attractive card propositions and offerings, total income from UOB’s unsecured business more than doubled in ASEAN-4 markets. UOB’s credit card fees reached an all-time high in the fourth quarter of 2023, driven by contributions from the expanded regional franchise alongside robust consumer spending throughout the region, where cross-border billings grew 79% year-on-year (YoY).

Leveraging on UOB’s increased presence in ASEAN, the bank has forged strategic partnerships with established regional and global brands in shop, dine, travel and entertainment - offering customers a unique regional proposition where exclusive rewards and privileges are available to all customers across ASEAN. Some of the bank’s notable new partnerships in 2023 include the world-first regional collaboration with Robert Parker Wine Advocate and Britain’s foremost designer, Paul Smith, for exclusive merchandise in spend-and-get campaigns. In the entertainment space, UOB has also offered customers exclusive access to regional entertainment tie-ups, including being the Official Bank and Presale partner for the Taylor Swift The Eras Tour in Singapore and the Regional Presenting Sponsor for the Ed Sheeran Mathematics Tour in ASEAN.

With customer centricity at the Bank’s core, UOB leverages data insights on how its customers live, work and play to deliver personalisation at scale through physical and digital channels. In 2023, UOB served close to 180 million insights to their customers via the UOB TMRW app - allowing customers to be in control of their money through timely reminders, alerts and notifications. As the bank learns more about customers’ behaviour and preferences, new insights are introduced to customers on market outlook, products and recommendations. On top of that, UOB has leveraged on their AI-powered merchant recommender engine model for region-specific, curated rewards for customers through the Rewards+ programme. For example, customers who spend more on dining will receive timely prompts on exclusive dining deals for UOB cardholders based on their travel location.

Driven by the bank’s digital-to-omni channel strategy, UOB takes a personalised omnichannel approach with curated wealth solutions for every life stage. Through UOB’s digital-led and advisor-assisted approach, customers on the TMRW app can view holdings based on asset/risk, transact on portfolio/funds, engage and receive advice through personalised notifications. Today, 1 in 2 new-to-wealth for unit trust (UT) are digitally acquired, with 70% of UT sales transactions arise from digital channel.

With UOB's strategic focus on personalisation and leveraging on the strong partnership ecosystems, UOB is well-placed to serve the lifestyle, payments and wealth management needs of their customers - firmly positioning UOB to achieve its ambition of becoming the preferred bank for aspiring ASEAN customers.

UOB Ladies: Unstoppable together
UOB – empowering women for 35 years and going strong

As women today grow in their financial muscle amidst worry of rising costs, UOB remain committed in supporting them with progressive solutions based on their ever-changing lifestyle, needs and risk appetite to help them live better, save better and enjoy the things they love.

The bank drew learnings from existing customer data and noted that women were rising in affluence and are:
> Spending more (42% more with their UOB credit cards in 2023 vs 2019)
> Becoming more financial savvy (with 60% of customers holding wealth products in 2023 being females)
> Accumulating more wealth (Female UOB customers saw higher growth in overall AUM in 2023 vs 2020)

Guided by this data and with the modern woman in mind, UOB redesigned the iconic UOB Lady’s Card that entered the market as the first women-centric credit card in 1989, and the UOB Lady’s Savings Account, launched in 2020 as the only savings account catered for women. In April 2024, it introduced the Unstoppable Pairing, that allows women to earn the highest-in-market accelerated UNI$ rewards earn rate of up to 10 miles per S$1 spend when they save and spend in specific categories tailored to their individual lifestyles. This refreshed and synergised proposition seeks to give women the best of both worlds – indulging in more of what they love as they live their best life, whilst they get rewarded as they continue to save and grow their wealth.

The initiative has enabled the acquisition of Lady’s Card to grow by 95% YoY and its billing by 76% YoY. Lady’s Savings account holders have also increased five-fold YoY since its launch and average account balances have also doubled.  

These initiatives are testament to UOB’s continuous commitment to championing and empowering women of today and earned the company the win in the Banking for Women Initiative of the Year - Singapore category.

Enhancing customer journey and experience
UOB has also made customer journey and experience a priority, by introducing a smart automated queue system and a digital first ambassador to educate customers and offload certain transactions to digital channels.

The smart automated queue system allows customers to book their queue numbers online or via SMS, and receive timely reminders and updates on their waiting time. This gives them the flexibility and convenience to plan their branch visits and minimise waiting time.

The digital first ambassador is a dedicated staff who guides customers on how to use the bank's digital platforms and services, such as mobile banking, PayNow, and e-statements. This helps customers to enjoy faster and more convenient banking transactions, and reduces the need for physical branch visits.

For customers who still prefer to visit the branch, UOB has set up Quick Serve counters in all branches to serve customers with non-cash transactions or quick enquiries. This demonstrates the bank's progressive and customer-first approach, as it aims to provide efficient and personalised service to all customers.

The efficiency and automation brought by this streamlined process helped UOB garner the Branch Innovation of the Year - Bronze title.

Taking business further
The bank has also leapfrogged its competition by continually improving on its UOB Business World Debit Card value proposition offering the most generous rewards and premium privileges to Start-Up and SME customers.

The new card proposition rewards customers with up to 1.5% cash rebates on their business spends and a host of other business and lifestyle privileges such as exclusive discounts from suppliers, protection against unauthorised employee card expenditures and access to airport lounges and golf courses.

In the immediate month upon the refresh, UOB has seen a significant increase in customer acquisition, with an average of 159% increase in the number of new cards issued. Through enhancing benefits such as the upgrading of the card to the Mastercard world platform, UOB Business World Debit Card is the first in Singapore to offer a premium business debit card with a whole suite of travel and lifestyle privileges, which includes access to airport lounges globally, premium golf courses and airport concierge services. This has allowed the bank to capture more customers, increase customer benefits and improve customer experience.

The success of the UOB Business World Debit Card has brought the bank the win in the Debit Card Initiative of the Year - Singapore category for the efficiency, convenience and cost savings it offers for businesses.

Health and wellness for community
To enhance customer engagement at the branches and build more meaningful relationships, a unique and innovative industry-first wellness initiative entitled Wellness@UOB was launched to imbue the banking experience with a wellness proposition and experience.  Beyond financial wellness, Wellness@UOB focuses on supporting customers’ holistic wellness, including their physical, emotional and mental wellness, through relevant wellness programmes in collaboration with specialised and reputable partners in the wellness industry.

Valuable insights into customers’ wellness needs and interests were garnered through wellness surveys, and with a data-driven approach, relevant wellness events and wellness engagement booths were curated to meet these customers’ needs at the branches.  

A large-scale Wellness Festival was also held to promote holistic wellness to the community in Raffles Place, with UOB as the only financial institution selected as an official programme partner of Wellness Festival Singapore (WFS).  The Wellness Festival also included activities and booths to support wellness for students from Pathlight School and beneficiaries from Down’s Syndrome Association and Touch Community Services.

The unique Wellness@UOB initiative with its impactful approach to support the wellness journey of our customers and the community led to UOB clinching the Health and Wellness Initiative of the Year - Singapore award.

Reaching for the stars with UOB TMRW
In keeping with its efforts to provide a range of deals for customers, the bank was named as the official bank and presale partner for Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour in Singapore. UOB card members across the region were accorded priority access with a chance to purchase coveted tickets to the shows.

As a result, credit and debit card applications, along with those for UOB accounts, went through the roof with triple-digit YoY growth at 97% for cards and 105% for accounts. Nearly all card applications, standing at 93%, and one in two account applications were completed and submitted via UOB TMRW.

The multi-pronged coordinated and targeted coverage was a resounding success as brand perception scores improved across the markets and customers were highly engaged with the UOB brand. UOB TMRW, as of end-2023, remains to be Singapore’s most loved banking app with No. 1 ratings on both Apple Store and Google Play Store.

This groundbreaking partnership brought UOB the Marketing & Brand Initiative of the Year - Singapore category win.

Empowering customers in digital payment landscape
The bank has also received the SME Payment Solutions of the Year - Singapore title in the awards programme for its constant demonstration of innovation and reliability by providing cutting-edge virtual payment solutions that revolutionised the way businesses engage in financial transactions.

This is evident in the success of its UOB Virtual Payment Control, which streamlines payment processes, enhances payment security, and facilitates seamless transactions for valued clients. The solution features dynamically generated virtual credit card numbers for each transaction, as well as customisable spend controls and workflow approvals.

Since its launch in 2020, the solution has been adopted by a wide range of clients, including financial institutions, construction firms, pharmaceuticals, travel management companies, and government agencies, amongst others.

UOB’s milestones in the prestigious ABF Retail Banking Awards 2024 highlights its strong position in capturing the surge in cross-border payments and wealth flows with its expanded regional presence whilst enabling a more personalised approach to customers’ unique lifestyles and needs.

The prestigious awards programme honours outstanding entities that are reshaping the retail banking landscape through innovative solutions, retail products, digital banking breakthroughs, and exceptional customer experiences.

The ABF Retail Banking Awards is presented by Asian Banking & Finance Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2025 awards programme and be recognised for your company's cutting-edge products, services, and solutions that made a positive impact on your customers, please contact Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected].