Singapore, 25 June 2012 – OCBC Bank announced today that it is setting aside another S$500 million for on-market purchases of its ordinary shares, pursuant to the share purchase mandate approved by shareholders at its extraordinary general meeting held on 25 April 2012.

This will be OCBC Bank’s fourth S$500 million share buyback programme. Its third programme, announced on 31 May 2006 and which commenced on 5 June 2006, is close to completion, with approximately S$489 million utilised and 64 million shares purchased as at 22 June 2012.

New share repurchases under the fourth programme will commence when the third programme is completed. Similar to its previous buyback programmes, OCBC Bank intends to execute the buybacks in a controlled and orderly manner over a reasonable period of time to minimise undue movement in OCBC’s share price.

OCBC Bank intends to hold the shares re-purchased as treasury shares to meet delivery obligations under its employee share schemes.