Wholesale Banking

Against a complex and uncertain macroeconomic environment in 2025, our Wholesale Banking business recorded strong results. We achieved 4% growth in net profit, supported by healthy loan growth of 9% and strong deposit growth of 17%, on a constant currency basis.

Strengthening Our Regional Franchise

We continued to support the growing ASEAN–Greater China flows. New-to-bank Chinese companies entering ASEAN rose by 50% year-on-year, up from 30% growth in 2024. To facilitate this momentum, we held around 15 OCBC One Connect business forum sessions across our core markets, bringing together policymakers, investors and industry stakeholders to share insights and on the ground perspectives. The largest session took place in Jakarta in August 2025, jointly organised by OCBC Singapore and OCBC Indonesia, and focused on manufacturing. It convened about 200 stakeholders and investors from China and Indonesia.

The Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) remained a key initiative. Since 2024, OCBC has committed RM15 billion in financing to businesses in Johor, with strong take up across data centres, manufacturing, healthcare, education, property and retail. To reduce friction for cross-border business formation, we became the first bank to enable Singpass authentication for Singaporeans opening business accounts in Malaysia.

Interest in JS-SEZ continues to extend beyond Malaysia and Singapore. In December 2025, OCBC Malaysia and Bank of Ningbo partnered with various Malaysian government agencies to promote the JS-SEZ in Beijing. About 100 participants from leading corporates and enterprises in China, across industries ranging from power, utilities, oil & gas and telecommunications, attended the exclusive Investment Dialogue on the JS-SEZ.

We further advanced our regional Ecosystem Banking strategy by enabling seamless access to financing solutions for SMEs via major ecosystem platforms. In Hong Kong, we partnered GS1 Hong Kong to launch a digital trade finance service on its ezTRADE platform, offering same day invoice financing approvals based on direct transaction data and eliminating the need for manual documentation.

We also partnered Marriott International to support their 12,000 SME suppliers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia with timely and seamless access to working capital and support in adopting sustainability practices, including obtaining independent sustainability ratings. This enables SME suppliers to build competitiveness amid rising cost pressures and increasing sustainability expectations.

Our robust regional platform is underpinned by our ability to provide market-leading digital capabilities that support our customers in their regional operations and expansion. We focused on enhancing regional connectivity of our clients' accounts through regional API gateways to facilitate their cash and liquidity management across their operating markets more efficiently and in real time.

Enabling a More Inclusive Low-Carbon Future

Supporting our clients to transition to a low-carbon economy and developing innovative solutions to meet their business needs remain a core priority.

As at end-2025, our sustainable financing commitments stood at $80 billion, 13% more than the year before. We topped the London Stock Exchange Group's league table for ESG loans in ASEAN for 2025 and came in second in Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. This reflects our steadfast commitment to supporting our clients' transition efforts towards a net-zero future.

Through our Mezzanine Capital unit, we made an equity investment in the development of a Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) plant, which will form part of Southeast Asia's largest integrated low-carbon steel plant located in Sabah, Malaysia. HBI is critical to low-carbon steel production, and steel is a vital component of net-zero technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, and carbon capture systems.

Supporting SMEs in their sustainability journeys remained a strategic focus. We partnered Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) to launch the OCBC SME Start-ESG Programme to support SMEs with tools to improve their sustainability performance. The Programme helps SMEs obtain a baseline measurement of their sustainability metrics with a grant from EnterpriseSG, expert advice on sustainability practices and access to sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) from OCBC.

We also extended the Women Unlimited programme to Malaysia and Hong Kong following strong momentum in Singapore and Indonesia. The programme is specially designed to support women entrepreneurs. Based on data, we know that one in three of our SME customers across our core markets is a woman entrepreneur. By 2030, we aim to have supported 10,000 women entrepreneurs across these markets.

Driving Efficiencies Through Innovation

We continued to enhance efficiency and customer protection through innovation. In June 2025, we rolled out the ability for customers to make in-app calls to our Business Service Centre through the OCBC Business app, offering them secure and convenient support when overseas while removing the need for IDD charges. We also introduced a digital authentication solution for calls to our service hotline, which cuts customer verification time from 60 seconds to 15 seconds on average. Both features were first-in-market.

At the same time, we rebuilt our global end-to-end Credit journey by replacing the existing credit origination platform. Rolled out globally within 20 months, the new platform has streamlined the credit application process, benefiting staff across the entire workflow, from frontline teams to backend processing units. Built on modern technology stacks, it also lays the foundation for future integration of advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Looking Ahead

2026 will continue to be shaped by geopolitical tensions, supply chain redesigns, and potential monetary policy shifts, all of which will redefine how businesses operate and compete. Amid these uncertainties, Asia is expected to remain a key growth engine. Our ongoing investments in deepening regional connectivity and cross-border capabilities position us well to capture the rising trade and investment shifts within Asia and enable us to support customers seeking to scale, diversify and invest across borders.

We continue to see significant opportunities in digital innovation, particularly in the rapid advancement of AI. Building on our momentum, we will intensify our investments in next generation technologies to harness AI to unlock more revenue opportunities and improve efficiency. This will help us serve our customers better and assist them in navigating the challenges ahead.