What this S’pore bank weighs in tailoring its AI tools across Asean

What suits a customer in Singapore may not suit one in Indonesia. 

For a bank betting on Asean, that means having a “trusted common foundation” for an AI strategy that adapts to each market. 

“Differing regulatory environments, customer needs and levels of digital maturity shape how AI solutions are designed, deployed and governed across our markets,” said Lawrence Goh, head of Group Technology and Operations at UOB.

Indonesia’s regulations, for instance, require customer-facing AI applications handling personal data to be hosted onshore, he said. The bank uses a standardised central platform and adapts deployment to local regulations.

Markets with rich financial data, like Singapore, can support AI-powered credit assessments, he added. 

An example is the bank’s AI-enabled B-Score 2.0 for its Commercial Banking Portfolio launched in August 2025. 

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The tool draws over 3,000 data points to flag early signs of borrower distress and risks among business accounts in the Republic. He added that regional roll-out is in progress.  

UOB, Singapore’s third-largest lender, aims to become the “No. 1 trade bank in Asean” and help businesses in the region trade across borders. 

Operating income from key Asean-4 markets grew 5 per cent year-on-year in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2025 (FY 2025) – a bright spot in its latest annual report. Asean-4 refers to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Asean-4 contributed 28.5 per cent of its FY 2025 operating income, the second-largest share after Singapore, which accounted for more than half.

Building strong foundations

With its Asean ambition in mind, UOB is building technology foundations on trust, control and reliability, Goh said. “This allows us to leverage regional scale where appropriate, localise where necessary and scale AI responsibly across Asean.”

Any tech UOB rolls out must be able to answer the same questions, he said: “Is the data trustworthy? Is the party interacting with the bank authentic? What has it been authorised to do? Can the service operate securely and consistently at scale?”

These questions will be especially relevant as UOB scales its use of agentic AI, where AI agents act on behalf of people. Goh expects organisations to move beyond experimentation and deploy agentic AI at enterprise scale over the next two to five years.

Getting that foundation right matters as consumers in the region weigh how much they can trust artificial intelligence with financial decisions.

UOB’s Asean Consumer Sentiment Study 2026 found that 62 per cent of consumers trust AI-powered tools to act in their best interest for financial decisions, 14 percentage points lower than the share of consumers who trust their primary bank to do so (76 per cent).

The study surveyed 5,000 consumers across Singapore and its Asean-4 markets in June 2026.

AI may change how banking is delivered, but not what customers value most, Goh said.

“Customers still want confidence that their money is safe, their interests are protected and someone remains accountable for the outcome,” he added. “The institutions that succeed will be those that use AI to strengthen that confidence.”

This was produced in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Global Finance & Technology Network.

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