How Uob Run and Maintain Its Considerable Influence in The Banking Industry

Introduction

United Overseas Bank (UOB) is a multinational banking organization, that has its headquarters stationed in Singapore. With branches found mostly in South East Asia, “UOB is committed to building lasting relationships with our customers, through product and market expertise, and our promise to always do what is right.” Quoted from UOB’s corporate profile, they have made a strong stand about maintaining a profitable customer relationship and will strive to do the righteous thing for their customers. UOB provides an array of services to serve the different types of needs the people might have. Services like commercial and corporate banking services, wealth banking and privilege banking services and private banking. To provide the highest degree of knowledge and services to their valuable customers, UOB send their employees from all around the world on monthly training to upgrade their skills and knowledge. Furthermore, the discussion of how UOB run and maintain its considerable influence in the banking industry, will be revealed.

Market Segment

UOB segmented their market into 3 groups, Individual, Companies and UOB Group Subsidiaries. Generally, banking services is relevant to all ages whether the old or the young, if there is money to bank in, anyone would need banking services. Specifically, UOB has 12 types of bank account opening and services suited for each age and income level group of people. Some of the 12 types of bank account opening and services starting from the most basic are Savings Account, Accounts in Trust, Gold Savings Account and Silver Savings Account, Junior Savers Account, Privilege Account, Wealth Premium Account. Judging from the list of account opening and services, it caters to the average income for individual adults, the children, the old and the higher income group of people. UOB offers these account and services as it gives the residents more options to choose from, given with their own personal situation.

UOB has many branches in many different parts of the world like the South East Asia, The States, Canada, Australia and many more. Having a diverse regional franchise enables UOB to serve customers ranging from consumers to large multinational corporates and to address the cross-border needs of companies doing business in this region. There are regional networks established too, to help with any business that needs any help. This way, UOB can reach out to as many potential future consumers as possible whilst serving their current different groups of customers.

Market Target

UOB came up with products and services that caters to everyone of all ages, however, the Baby Boomers and Generation X especially start up business owners are essentially more focused on as, UOB wants to create a long-term relationship and a reciprocal trading. The Baby Boomers and Generation X, are the priority targeted audience as they are the working adults that spend an estimated amount of $2.3 trillion annually and hold about three quarter of the nation’s assets. Hence, UOB has come up with many services to attract loyal working adults to choose UOB as their rightful bank. Services like the most basic, Passbook Savings Account, UOB provide incentives to consumers such as earning high daily interest rate of 0.05% and complimentary global Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card. These incentives will attract loyal customers especially the adults to choose UOB for their banking services needs as they earn high interest rates on top of their own savings. Besides that, when their customers travel overseas, they do not need to change and convert currencies as UOB provides them a global ATM card for customers to use in ease and with convenience while spending quality time with their family. To make things easier for consumers, UOB has 24 hours Internet Banking and have access to UniAlerts which will alert consumers of any transaction made via email or mobile phone.

UOB also provides business banking, commercial banking and corporate and institute banking for businesses. Business bank loan is also applicable for startup owners too. UOB has 3 different types of service for business loan, UOB Business Loan, UOB BizMoney and UOB overdraft. Startup owners who wish to uplift their business can apply for UOB BizMoney that provides up to $350,000 of funds and up to 4 years of repayment with an interest rate of 10.88%. To make things even more convenient for customers, UOB has come up with products like Business Application whereby business owners have access to business tools, business news and insights and business banking access that is 24 hours. This allows business owners to gain extra knowledge of business while using the Business Application. On top of all the incentives, if the customer successfully applied for UOB Business Loan, they get extra benefits like vouchers to use for free.

With existing customer portfolio that the bank has, UOB will upgrade customers who have a total asset of S$100,000 and S$350,000 to Wealth Banking segment and Privilege Banking segment respectively whereby their banking experiences will be more conducive, more comfortable in a specialized centre serving drinks and a dedicated relationship manager to provide advisory services on their banking and investment needs. Higher segment customers are also sometimes offered higher interest accounts. With this, more customers will be attracted to place in more funds with UOB and getting the information and banking services they need whilst luxuriating in the hospitality and customer services being provided with comfort.

Market Positioning

UOB target its mass market customers mainly through media like newspaper, television, magazines and online websites (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube) to publicize the current products and promotion that the bank is offering to attract new customers to expand their customer base. UOB chooses these platforms because technology is very advanced, and these mobile devices makes connection and communication handy at the tip of their fingers. Everyone’s eyes are basically glued onto the screens of their devices. Hence, this works as an opportunity to grasp hold of their attention while they are on social platform. For instance, UOB pays YouTube for their advertisement to be played before users of YouTube gets to watch their videos. There would be a commercial advertisement about 10 seconds to maximum, 2 minutes to advertise application or goods and services to the users of YouTube. Occasionally, UOB would come up with new advertisements yearly, especially during festive seasons like Chinese New Year or Christmas to promote some of their new products. This way, it provides an impression of what UOB does for their customers through storytelling and at the same time, imprinting the valuable impression into the user’s memory. Ages ranging from 21 and above still uses Facebook frequently, hence UOB also put some of their new or promotional products out onto Facebook to inform the users about UOB and its products and services. Some of the times, UOB would advertise their products on public transportation vehicles like the bus or on the Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) stations whereby residents would notice once they raise their heads off of their mobile devices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, UOB has put in tremendous effort to maintain a profitable relationship with their customers by offering many different types of services to the different group of people that they have segmented. Whilst building trust and long-term relationship between all their valuable customers from all around the world, UOB provides comfort and their best knowledge with moral values to cater to their customer’s banking services needs. UOB wants to make sure that their valuable customers will have the best experience while working with them by treating their customers importantly, with absolute care and attention. This way, they can maintain their current customers and at the same time, increase the size of their customer base.