Good morning, everyone. Welcome to UOB's briefing on our proposed acquisition of Citigroup's retail business in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. I'm Steven, and I will be the moderator for today's session. This session is also available in Bahasa Indonesia and Thai. If you wish to listen to the session in either of these languages, please click on the interpretation icon, the one that looks like a globe, at the bottom of your screen, and select your preferred language. This morning, we have Mr. Wee Ee Cheong, UOB Deputy Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Lee Wai Fai, our CFO, to share more details on the announcement. Before we start, we would like to request for all participants to keep your questions for the Q&A segment after all the presentations are done. We also ask that you put yourself on mute for now. As we have a lot of ground to cover today, I'll hand over to Mr. Wee, please. Thank you, Steven. Good morning. Thank you for joining us at such short notice. I see many of you tuning in from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. This is an important milestone for UOB. We want to share the good news as soon as we can. We have just announced an acquisition of Citi's retail business in four ASEAN countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, as a package for a total cash consideration of about SGD 5 billion, which translates to 1.2 times book. As a long-term player, UOB has been disciplined, selective, and patient in seeking the right opportunities to grow. We have been on the lookout all this while, even as we focus on organic growth. This acquisition is a great opportunity that comes at the right time, a transformational deal that will advance our position as a leading regional bank. We know this region well. We believe in its growth potential. With this deal, we get to scale up our business across four target markets at one go. In one move, doubling our retail franchise in four countries, propelling our market leadership positions, accelerating our growth targets by five years. It is the right strategic fit. We are acquiring a quality and complementary portfolio and team. Citi has been building the franchise for over 50 years with best-in-class capabilities, people, and processes. UOB has also been investing in this region, infrastructure, and team. When combined, we will have a diversified product mix with superior returns while maintaining portfolio resilience. From the integration standpoint, acquiring from a single reputable seller with a uniform franchise will reduce complexity. One bank, one platform, one model. We can replicate earnings, learnings in a phased approach across target countries on a regional platform. We will provide continuity and good home for Citi customers and employees. Timing-wise, the COVID crisis allowed us to validate the resilience of the business and portfolio for both UOB and Citi. We are glad that we are in a position of strength to do this deal. Our strong balance sheet allow us to seize this opportunity and to put our capital to good use. We will have revenue synergies from scale benefits. We expect this deal to be immediately accretive to group EPS and ROE, excluding one-off transaction costs. Including one-time costs, we will be EPS and ROE accretive by 2023 and generate higher returns over time. ROE more than 13% by 2026. Our capital CET1 will be restored to above 13% by 2023, which is next year. In summary, this deal is a strategic fit at the right time. We are in a position of strength with a strong balance sheet and regional platform to seize this opportunity. We are buying a quality franchise. Four target markets at one go with a complementary base of customers, people, capabilities. A powerful combination that will accelerate our growth ambitions. We are confident that this deal will further strengthen and deepen our regional franchise. We are committed to creating value for the enlarged base of customers, employees, and other stakeholders. UOB has a proven track record of successful acquisitions and integrations. Together with organic growth, we have expanded our regional footprint and sustained strong performance over time. This latest acquisition reaffirms our commitment to Southeast Asia. We have been investing and created a proven standardized platform and regional infrastructure. We are confident of executing this deal across these markets. Acquiring from a single reputable seller with a uniform franchise will reduce complexity by replicating the learnings in a phased approach across countries. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are key markets which we are familiar with. Citi Retail customer segment in these countries complements UOB. They will boost our existing base across the upper mass, emerging affluent, and affluent segments. Our number of customers in each market will almost double. Our market position will be propelled to be top three card issuer in Malaysia and Thailand, for example. This deal will boost our unsecured business, complementing our strengths in funding, secured, and wealth business. The end result will be a diversified product mix with higher returns for the four markets while maintaining portfolio resilience. We have been investing in our regional and digital capabilities over the years. Our retail strategy remains intact. We will continue to tap the rising affluence in Southeast Asia by acquiring customers using our digital banking platform, UOB TMRW, and serving them through our omni-channel approach as their needs grow. Post-acquisitions, we will almost double our customer base in the region to 5.3 million. We will become one of the largest retail banks in the region with an expanded customer franchise, more touch points and partnerships, a greater market share, and a stronger team to serve our customers. Our customers can expect better offerings and benefits with more touch points and a larger partnership ecosystem. We value Citi senior leadership and employees. We share similar values and believe in diversity, teamwork, and meritocracy. We will fortify our capabilities by bringing onboard people across various levels with the relevant expertise and experience. Together, the combined UOB and Citi team across four countries will create business synergies and more career opportunities for our people. We are committed to contributing to the financial industry and economy in each of the four countries and look forward to receiving regulatory approval for the deal. As a homegrown bank, we are committed to growing together with our customers, employees, and other stakeholders to realize the potential of this region. Thank you for your support. I will now ask my CFO, Wai Fai, to share the financial implication. Thank you. Thank you, Ee Cheong. As articulated by Ee Cheong, this acquisition will help us deepen capabilities, reach, and scale in products and market we understand well. The combination of the product strength of each party allows us to grow the more profitable unsecured exposure, yet maintain an overall healthy and well-diversified portfolio. The books are resilient and well-managed. This acquisition does not change our geographical mix instantly, as Singapore continues to be our main market. In terms of financial impact, the acquisition will immediately bring a 1.4x income uplift and a 1.2x loans growth in the four markets from our enlarged scale. At the group level, we can see an immediate SGD 1 billion incremental income uplift. The transaction is valued at 1.2x net assets of SGD 4 billion and will be fully funded by UOB's excess capital. The CET1 impact will be 0.7%, which is manageable. This results in a pro forma CET1 ratio of 12.8%. Post-acquisition, the group remains well capitalized. With the expected normalization of our RORWA to be above 1.7%, we plan to restore capital and target for our CET1 to be greater than 13% by 2023. More important, this acquisition is immediately EPS and ROE accretive, excluding the one-off cost. By scaling our regional subsidiaries, we are now targeting a higher ROE of more than 13% and an RORWA of close to 2% by 2026. For our dividend outlook, we remain comfortable and confident that we are able to maintain our dividend policy of the 50% dividend payout ratio. Subject to regulatory approvals, we are targeting completion for Thailand and Malaysia by the second quarter of 2023 and the remaining market by the first quarter of 2024. Our centralized system and common operating model reduces the risk of system migration per country. Together with the phased approach, it allows us to replicate integration successes and synergies across market. We have also set up joint integration team at the regional and country level, supported with dedicated resources that will ensure seamless integration and migration of Citi's customers and employees. I think like Ee Cheong said, we have done this many times before. Just to recap, this slide actually shows the key terms of the transaction. To reiterate, this is a reasonably priced acquisition that enables UOB to scale our franchise, fast-forward our customer growth, strengthen our capabilities, and contribute to realizing our target ROE of more than 13% by 2026. With capital staying strong and CET1 expected to be more than 13% by 2023, we remain comfortable with maintaining our dividend policy of the 50% dividend payout ratio. I think with that, we can invite questions from both analysts and the media. Thank you. Thank you, CEO and CFO. For our Q&A segment, we also have with us on our virtual panel, Mr. Eddie Khoo, Head of Group Retail, Miss Jacquelyn Tan, Head of Group Personal Financial Services, and the respective country CEOs. A few house rules to take note of before we open the floor to questions. If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function. Click on the reactions icon at the bottom of your screen, third button from the right, and select Raise Hand and turn on your camera. Please wait for your name and organization to be called before asking your question. If you are asking your question in your local language, our interpreters will help to translate into English for our executives. Finally, as we have a large group today, please ask only one question when you are called upon. Thank you. We will now open the floor for questions. Our first question comes from Nick Lord of Morgan Stanley. Nick, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Thank you very much, Steven, congratulations to the UOB team for the acquisition. My one question, in terms of a customer overlap, have you done any work estimating how much of Citi and UOB customer base overlap? Have you done any analysis on potential customer attrition rates? I think, as I articulated in my speech, the region, the customer base will enlarge to about 5.2 million customer. They do have some overlap, I think the overlap, to me, is quite minimum. This is the consumer business, it could be a customer holding different products. I think the synergy to cross-sell the product is even greater with a bigger scale. We have gone through that, in fact, we also factor in 10% attritions when we negotiate with the Citibank. Everything is well in place, we are actually looking forward to cross-sell a bigger portfolio, better service, better quality service to a larger scale of our customer base in the region. That also improve our partnership arrangement. With a bigger scale, we will have a better bargaining power. I hope I answer your question. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Next question is from Aakash of UBS. Aakash, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. Yeah, congratulations on winning this auction and the transaction. I just want to understand the math behind some numbers here. SGD 5 billion is the price you paid. How does that apply to the CET1 decline from 13.5%-12.2%? Because that I think implies like a SGD 2 billion number. Secondly, the price that you're paying is 1.2x price to assets, not price to book. Is that correct? Yeah, like we said, we paid SGD 5 billion all in, with the net asset base of around SGD 4 billion and a premium of SGD 950 million. The SGD 2 billion assets, capital that you estimate comes from the increased SGD 900 over, and the asset base that we take over, which is around SGD 9 billion, and the capital that is needed to support it. The sum of the two is around the SGD 2 billion that you estimate, Aakash. What's the second question? Sorry. Aakash, you want to go ahead with your second question? I was just think about the 1.2 times price to book. Yes. Is that 1.2 price to assets or is it price to book? Price to book. Because we are taking a SGD 4 billion book. We are paying SGD 915 million premium, you can do the math. That's the 1.2x. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Aakash. Our next question is from Kevin Kwek of Bernstein. Kevin, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi. This is Kevin from Bernstein. Congratulations. Looks like a meaningful incremental deal position. I'd like to ask something more on the rationale. Do pardon the question. I know that Citi's starting point is not UOB and your long history in these markets, but after decades where Citi has decided to throw in the towel, could you share and elaborate some of the management's thinking on what you can do differently, maybe specifically for each market that will make you succeed? Thank you. I think good questions. If you look at the scale of UOB, I think this portfolio will give us a big opportunity. We are not as big as Citibank, and we have a long-term ambition of trying to get scale. Even for Citibank, took them 50 years, and the fact is they decided to sell and this is also an opportunity for us. I always view Citibank portfolio as something that is good, they always have good people. In fact, some of my good people actually come from Citibank. In my whole banking career, I always look Citibank as I admire them from the distance. Right? I think this is a perfect time, especially during the COVID situation, that it give us the opportunity to look at the quality of the portfolio. It's actually proven to be good. Given the opportunity, we are able to use one stone to kill four birds, all in four country together. What more can you ask for, right? For that kind of scale, it would double my customer base. I think that is good enough for the size of UOB. If you combine UOB Singapore and as well as the region, we are talking about total customer base of slightly less than 10 million customer. That will give us a tremendous opportunity for us to cross-sell our products throughout the whole region. I'd like to follow up on that, if I may, specifically on Thailand. The other countries are, Malaysia has been a stable market and good returns. Indonesia, nice long term. Thailand is a little bit more challenging. Could you comment on whether you see risk there? That's one question. The other one I have is specifically on TMRW. Does that in any meaningful way drive out of the rationale, any specifics there would be appreciated. Actually with this acquisition, our digital platform is actually helps to accelerate our digital transformation on the regional basis, it will actually scale up our customer base. I think this is a parallel move that we are more than happy to pursue our omni channel as well as the digital channel. If you look at the omni channel, you're talking about our acquisition, we will take over 24 branches cut across four countries. They are actually very small. We will still see how we can work together the digital way as well as the omni way. I think both combination will give us the optimum return. Yes, Thailand market is more competitive, the major acquisition actually come from Thailand. If you look at the portfolio, actually, they are quite disciplined, Citibank, and we are quite happy with the quality of the portfolio. Because of competition, that's the whole idea of why we acquired them. Okay? We enlarge our scale to compete. Malaysia, yes, is a much smaller market, but they're all decent portfolio. Vietnam is small, even for us, but it's also a good opportunity for us to take a small step to move forward. It's a country that I think long-term, Vietnam will be a country that offer a lot of opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Wee. Thank you, Kevin. May I remind all, as we have a large group today, that please ask only one question when you are called upon. Our next question comes from Melissa Kuang from Goldman Sachs. Melissa, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi, there. Thank you very much for taking my question. In terms of my question, just wanted to ask about synergy. You talked a lot about the revenue synergy. Can you talk a bit about the cost synergy? Where do you think the cost synergy can come in the digital world? Do you think that you can milk it a little bit more in terms of the cost side? Thank you. Maybe you want to take that. Okay. I think this probably relates to the question on how we use the Citi acquisition scale, right? We talk about acquire, transact, and serve. The transaction and service is through the omni-channel. This actually adds a significant volume for me to accelerate that part of it. Technically, I have a bigger scale, and that would bring my omni-channel cost down. We are still rationalizing, and there will be a larger base. We know that the Citibank base is slightly higher. Part of it is because of their head office costs. Besides that, I think they are pretty efficient. We are looking at ways that we think that we can get some synergy out of it, but basically just the volume impact into my countries, okay, will be able to bring that cost down. We are struggling in the subsidiaries because of the lack of scale, because we have a network that is not well utilized. This gives us a good opportunity to look at the omni-channel strategy to further rationalize it. Definitely with the higher volume, it will bring the cost down. Probably by 2026, the way that we estimate together with our own growth, it could easily bring a 3% point of cost to income ratio down. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Chanya of Bloomberg. Chanya, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hello. Congratulations, Mr. Wee and Mr. Lee, and [Foreign language] sawasdee ka. My question is about the staff that you are going to get transferred from Citi, which you estimate at about 5,000. Did you have any agreement with Citi on how long you will keep them? I think I see Citibank staff as an asset. Okay? I don't need any agreement. I think I welcome all your staff. I think it's a much bigger base. If you look at it, 60% of Citibank staff that we acquired, they are all generating frontline staff. I want to take this opportunity to welcome every one of them, part of the bigger family. We, in fact, we have a committee to look at it jointly together with Citibank to see how best we can take full advantage of making both UOB staff as well as Citibank staff work together for the common good of the organization. No job cuts? Say again. No job cuts? How many people do you have? How can you absorb 5,000? At the moment we are just signed the deal. Okay. We are focusing on integration. Okay. At this point in time, when we decide to buy Citibank portfolio, these are good portfolio and good portfolio are run by good quality people. No reason for me to talk about cutting costs. We are here to engage them in a meaningful way. We are here to welcome them. [Foreign language] khob khun ka. Thank you, Mr. Wee. Our next question is from Hu of Lianhe Zaobao. Hu, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hello, Mr. Wee and Mr. Tay. Hi. I understand from the timeline that this is the firm's major acquisition in 16 years, right? Were there any competitors for this deal? Have you looked at any other Citi portfolio, let's say, actually, I think during also? Yeah. Mr. Wee, she is asking whether or not, was there any other competitor for this deal? Oh, yeah. I think this is the Well, I don't know. You have to ask Citibank. Okay? I believe it's a very robust bidding process. Arm's length, willing buyer, willing seller basis. I know the competition is tough, but I think we do represent a fair, reasonable bid and based on the portfolio quality. The fact is, Citibank has chosen us to be the buyer, and it shows that we are competitive. Thank you, Mr. Wee. Our next question is from- Sorry, just one more. I'm just wondering, did you look at the other portfolios of Citibank? They're only willing to sell the consumer side, right? We don't have the opportunity to look at other portfolios. While they're actually selling 16 countries, right? We are only interested in four countries. This is where we have the bank strength, we have the people, and this is where the integration risk will be a lot less. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Wee. May I just repeat myself that, because we have a big group today, please ask only one question when you are called upon. Our next question is from Chris Wright of Euromoney. Chris, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Thank you, Steven, for calling me. Sorry for the Wi-Fi. One question. On the tech side, you've put huge efforts into developing the TMRW digital systems for your consumer business in 38 cities. Could you talk a little bit about the comparison between. Sorry, I think. Chris, I think you have to- You are breaking up. Yeah, breaking up. I can't hear you, Chris. Okay, my mute is off. Can you hear me now? Okay, slightly better. Maybe try again. Now, my question is about the tech side. You've put huge efforts into developing the TMRW platforms across your consumer business in 38 cities. Citi has its own digital platform, very strong as well, but a different platform. My question is, what challenges are involved in integrating two well-developed digital platforms that are different in these markets? I'll take that one. Chris, I think that's a good question. When we look at it, the first thing that we look at was I think they are really very much a digital-engaged customer base, which you have really correctly pointed out. For us, it's quite easy to encourage them to use the digital channel that we are developing. In terms of product capabilities, when we look at the overlaps and things that we don't have, we are developing those features which we are confident will be able to support the Citibank's customer needs itself. Plus our enhanced proposition, we are quite comfortable that we will be able to match the Citibank services through their digital platform, together with ours. There's a whole team looking at product, customer value proposition, service standard, agreements to make sure customers are not affected. We look at what features customers are interested in, et cetera. There's a whole integration team, like we said, that will go into this, we will be communicating to customers immediately, to make sure that customers be assured there will be minimal disruption to the service standard that they're enjoying from both sides. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Norman from The Jakarta Post. Norman, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, ask your question. Hello. Hi. Congratulations on the acquisition. I'm Norman from The Jakarta Post in Indonesia. The question is, could you comment a bit on how exactly your acquisition would add to your retail business in Indonesia? What is your big plan for the media market after the acquisition? I'll take that. I think I can take it, yes. Yeah. Norman, you're asking how this acquisition will basically add to our retail business in Indonesia? Okay. Good point. I think really, like we said, if you look at their skill set and the product features, it's quite different. Okay? They are very strong in the unsecured business, and we are actually very strong in the secured business. That actually complements and gives it a wide variety. With the customer base itself, we are able to better offer cross-sell opportunities because of our now bigger platform and bigger product offering. We think that we are able to give customers a better value proposition compared to where they have today. Like I said, it's actually complementary to us and not overlap in terms of the product and services. Thank you, Norman. Our next question is from Boon Ping of The Asian Banker. Boon Ping, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Thank you, Steven, for taking my question, and hello to Mr. Wee and Mr. Li. Hello. I think that there's a bit of an echo. I want to get into deeper the question about the different operating model of UOB and Citi, and how that will impact Citi's customers' servicing and also experience. As Mr. Li mentioned earlier, how is UOB going to maintain the Service and customer experience, what are the similarities between the two operating models? What are the differences, and how will you maintain, as you mentioned, Citi is kind of known for their service quality and usually score pretty high on that promoter score and so on, so forth. What are the risks that you see going forward? Thank you. It's a very good question. First of all, I think we are very confident of executing this integration. UOB, we have a standardized platform, and it's no different than Citibank. They do have a standardized, uniform way of managing all the countries in this region, and that makes it easier for us. We will have to go into the detail to see how we can match the product capabilities, and this is where we form a committee to look at it. We take a phased approach, okay? Across 4 markets. One country can go first, and we replicate our learnings with each market to better integrate the subsequent markets. It's a joint team that we are working together, and I believe for Citibank, the technology is housed in Singapore. That makes it a lot easier for us to have a simpler integration process. I've spoken to my IT folk, I think we are all very confident. In fact, they're already working on the whole integration. UOB also on the digital platform, I don't see any major obstacle. The whole idea is to make sure we protect our customer base, right? Hopefully even better, we can enhance. The product hopefully will be better than UOB, Citibank combined, we can enhance into a much better capability. This is something we are working on. I think that is important. That is part of the acquisition. The last thing you want is to pay something and then you lose your customer base. Maybe I'll just add some color to what Ee Cheong has said. The integration is not like we sign and they drop off. Okay. There are two parts to it, right? Meanwhile, no change to customer service because they will still service it under the Citi franchise. But after regulatory approval, Citi will continue to support us until our systems are ready. Okay. That's what we call the transitional agreement that we have with Citibank. It's also during that period that we will look at how we will enhance our UOB to be able to take over completely. If you really look at the chart, that's why even Indonesia takes a bit longer for us, was to prepare for that stage. Meanwhile, customer will continue to be served because the Citibank will continue to stay there to make sure that the service standard don't drop, and we will quickly bring the UOB up to speed, which we are confident of because we have been studying this for some time. I was telling Ee Cheong and most of them, this news has been in the market. If you're not successful, we also want to be able to serve those product features. Now that it's successful, it allows us to accelerate. Also, I want to assure customers that it's not that TMRW they'll be dropped off. Citibank is still there to make sure during the transition that they will be served, then until UOB is ready. We will have to be completely ready, and we are confident with our IT team that we're ready to make it. That staged integration actually helps. Okay. For Indonesia, actually, the risk is very low because the Thailand and Malaysia we have come first earlier. I can assure customers in all countries that you will be taken care of. Thank you. Our colleague, A, from UOB Thailand will now ask on behalf of the Thai media. A, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi. I'm asking on behalf of from Bell Plus. What is your plan post-acquisition to support the growth? Say again. She's asking what's your plan post-acquisition to support the growth in UOB Thailand. We see Thailand as a country that has a lot of potential. First of all, Thai market is highly competitive, right? With a combination of Citi and UOB, that will give us better opportunity to serve our customers. Okay? To answer your question, yes. In fact, the whole acquisition, Thailand is the main bulk of the acquisition come from Thailand. Okay? The premium that we pay on Thailand, the customer base that we have, Thailand represent the biggest in terms of acquisition. To answer your question, it's a country that we are very comfortable. We are more than happy to serve our bigger customer base in Thailand. Just to elaborate again, if you look at my chart, Thailand actually has the biggest income uplift. Okay? Which means that the scale of the Thai operation is very important for us. I think that overlap again is the same question, and our Thai colleagues will be very excited to be able to bring the UOB Thailand to new heights, and also to serve the Thai customers and contribute more significantly to the Thai economy. I think that we don't intend to slow down. In fact, we think that one plus one will be more than two, like Ee Cheong always said. Thank you. Our next question is from Zairina of Bernama. Zairina, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hello. Hi. Congratulations. My question is, you said that the acquisition will immediately bring a 1.4 times income uplift. What kind of the prospect for full year? That's the question. Thank you. Sorry, this was a pro forma, right? As you know, I think I don't want to speculate. This is actually a staggered approach. The impact actually will be gradually over the period. You already asked what would be the impact on 2020. If you look at that chart itself, we say that the legal day one will be staggered throughout, probably by the first half you'll get two countries in, and the rest maybe end of the year or early next year. I think that the financial impact for this year, like I said, will be positive if you exclude the one-off cost itself. The full impact will be when we put the two together and we extract the synergy out of it. Okay? I think that's probably where you will see it gradually coming through between the 2024-2026 is where we think that the cross-sell will greatly come out. That's why by 2026 is where we are confident that we will lift our own internal profit and ROE target. Okay? Previously, we have committed to the market of around 12, now we're actually saying that this deal can lift up to 13. We are very hopeful that we can get a lot more working together. Thank you. Our next question is from Goola of The Edge. Goola, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Yes. Hi. Congratulations, Mr. Wee and Wai Fai. Can only ask one question, it's all in one go. It's sort of a short-term impact. What is the one-off cost likely to be on this year's earnings? Related to that, how will the acquisition impact your net interest margins and your credit costs and the cost to income ratios? How will you treat the goodwill? I think that's about all I can ask. Thanks. We think that the one-off cost will be around SGD 700 for over two years. The main bulk will be what I call a tax cost for Malaysia, that will be SGD 200 coming in. The other two will be spread over two years, the remaining. The way we do that is that goodwill will be amortized. Part of the intangibles will be amortized, goodwill will stay on the book to be proven. Probably maybe 30% of those will be amortized. The rest will permanently be proofed as a proof of goodwill into the group itself. I think that's probably cost to income this year, short term, not big impact. But I think exclude the one-off cost. If you include the one-off cost, it'll be higher. If you exclude the one-off cost, I think we will be okay. Longer term, like I said, by 2026, we see a lot of probably synergy effect as we bring the volume and improve efficiency. There was one more question. She was also asking the impact on margins and credit cost. Margins actually is positive for us, okay? In that sense, and you know that a lot of this unsecured space has better margins, better RORWA. The downside, like you said, will the credit cost offset that? The credit cost, if you look at the Citibank portfolio, actually quite well managed. Okay? We are confident that the impact, and you look at the portfolio impact to the group itself, is not big. Okay? By itself it's important, but it's not big. My credit cost to the group is actually marginal. I don't think there will be a big impact, maybe one, two basis point, but a very small impact. But the return on RWA will be greatly enhanced. Okay? Thanks. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Bayani Cruz of The Asset. Bayani, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Thank you very much. Congratulations UOB for winning this deal. My question is with regards to the branding. Citi is relatively well known in all of the countries that you're acquiring them compared to the UOB brand. Pardon me for saying so. My question is, how much value does the Citi brand bring to the table? I presume you'll be phasing out the Citi brand eventually, right? How long will that process take place, or do you have a plan to keep the Citi brand in there somewhere throughout this transition period? Thank you. Okay. Legally, on legal day one, the Citibank will drop out. Okay. Once the regulatory approval comes through, we'll take over. If you look at the chart that we are talking about, our consumer branding, yes, you could argue in some cases could be slightly. In other some countries, we are on par. Okay. We have done some customer survey on all the value proposition and all. We have done over the last few years to enhance our value to make sure that, like I said, even without Citibank, we know that we have to compete in the market. We have been growing our presence. As a result, you look at our positioning of cards. In some countries, we were already three or four, that brings us to two. In some countries, it propel us to two from a five or six position. I think we are very confident that our value proposition will be able to retain the customers and the loyalty of the Citibank that we are buying over. We will have to spend some money on branding to assure the customers, our service centers and all, we are confident that we'll be able to retain them. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Jayden of Macquarie. Jayden, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Thank you, congratulations on completing the transaction. My question was actually similar to the one asked before around integration costs. I missed the exact number as the audio has been cutting in and out. Maybe if you could repeat the total amount, Wai Fai. Also what risk do you see, either upside or downside to those integration costs? That would be helpful. Thank you. I mentioned that it will be a SGD 700 million over 2 years that we are talking about. SGD 200 million is for a stamp duty tax that I cannot avoid. The remaining majority of it will be from system as we all expect. Part of it is the brand and the people that we talk about. There was a question on branding. We intend to spend money to uplift our brand image and the product features that we have. The SGD 200 million will be hit in the 1st year, the rest will be spread equally over 2 years. That is probably just to give you some. The risk of it in all integration, there are always 3, right? 1 is system. System will always be a risk, but the way that we approach it, like Ee Cheong mentioned, we do have a common operating model. We do have a common system. Citi also has the same feature. It is quite easy when we look at the overlaps, how we can actually bring the system up to speed. The 2nd is people. People is the key part and many questions been asked. There is a full-scale project team that we want to keep their good people. In fact, we are actually starting next week, looking at good people, how do we anchor them? At the same time, also our own people, because we do, to be fair, have a credible retail outfit. The sum of the 2 to us is important that it will be bigger. The people side, we are looking at, and if you look at the profile that Ee Cheong do, they do have very good experienced people. You look at the tenures and all, they are not long. They are a mixture of those more than 20 years, 10 years, 15 years, and the front-end people. That is a very good mix for us. The last is customer, and we actually mentioned a lot of customers. All these 3 in all integrations are equally important, but there is an integration team together with Citi that comes together immediately to address this issue, to make sure that all 3 elements, there is no big drop-off. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Krishna of Jefferies. Krishna, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi, Krishna, are you on mute? Please unmute yourself, turn on your camera, and ask your question. We are not hearing any audio from Krishna. Maybe I will go to the next question first. Our next question comes from Andrea of CIMB. Andrea, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi. Thank you so much for the presentation. I have just one question. In your integration timeline, there is a note on the phase migration to de-risk and optimize resources in Malaysia and Indonesia. Could we have some color on your de-risking process and what it entails, and whether this is only applicable to Indonesia and Malaysia? Thank you. The way we look at it is that we have common processes and system. Okay? That's where you look at the dark blue bar that I used to show on my slide. That's actually common across countries. That's probably the planning of it that is applicable. Okay. The countries itself, you will be looking at specific. The learnings that I have in Thailand, for example, and Malaysia. As we bring product to the system, as we look at customers and all, as we look at the integration effect, we will be able to share the experience in Malaysia and Indonesia, which will come later. By the time I reach another country, I will have got most of my operational problems out of the way, and I'll be focusing on market problem when I do the operational day one. This actually reduces the risk. It's not a risk of the market times four. Okay? It's actually a very calculated risk. By the time I finish my blue bar, I will have finished most of my so-called technology to make sure that they're all common. The implication of implementation during tech cut is not new. It's not new features and all that you worry about. That drastically reduces the risk at the country level. At the country level, I just have to worry about customer migration. How do I take care of that? How do I make sure, based on the legal law, and how do I inform customers based on some of the confidentiality, what can we do? Those are the things that actually will reduce that risk in this integration by country. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Zhi Xuan of Point72 Asset Management. Zhi Xuan, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hey, thanks so much, and congratulations. If I understand correctly, the deal is going to get us in the medium term from 12% ROE to 13%. I just want to understand of the one percentage uplift, how much of that is coming from synergy? Also, if it's okay to share, what's the ROE of the Citi assets by nine months this year or on a normalized basis? Thanks. We did disclose and look at our third quarter, it's around 10%. Okay? Today, we're around 10%. Okay? That's the number that we actually showed. The ROE uplift, like I said, is something that the Citibank does bring to us. To be fair, Citibank deal can't bring me from 10 to 13. Okay? We ourselves are really trying to grow and actually have committed to a lot of investors that I'll bring it to 12. Within that 12 assumption, the retail has already had a transformation plan, okay, that they wanted to bring that. Now that we can accelerate it, okay, because with all this acquisition, I can accelerate that. I can get the retail to contribute earlier so that they can add that 1% point by 2026. I think that's where we are committing to the 12 to 13. You think about it, the retail is a good ROE business. The problem with retail is you cannot scale. You don't want to scale too much on mortgage, which is always a worry of concentration. The unsecured business, you only worry about credit. Credit does have a 50-year history that can show us that they can do it well. Together with our enhanced data analytics and knowledge of customers, we are confident that we can get that revenue uplift while controlling the credit cost. Those are two important assumptions that we have on the synergistic effect, because we are actually bringing the unsecured product dimension to new height, learning from Citi. Thanks. You were saying 10%. The ROE of the Citi assets you acquired is 10% that quarter you were saying? No, the ROE of the group is 10%. Yeah. What's the ROE of the Citi assets that you acquired? ROE that they are taking today is 3.5, is probably around 20%. Okay? 20% over. 20% over. Got it. Thanks so much. Thanks, Wai Fai. Our next question comes from our colleague, A, from UOB Thailand, who will be asking questions on behalf of the Thai media. A, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi. This question's coming in from Sharebox. They ask that, can you share with us a strategic plan to drive business in Thailand and in the region for this year? Okay. She's asking, can we share our strategic plans to drive the growth of the business in Thailand and the targets for this year? Can we get Eddie in? I think Eddie come. You want to highlight what is your specifically, what is your consumer plan? I think do it at a high level. Yeah. We'll take the details. Eddie, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and answer A's question. All right. Can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. Okay. In the retail, in fact, our countries in Singapore across the region, our strategic ambition is very clear. The things that we're driving, the two big engines of growth is basically our deposit base and our credit card base. Okay? These are probably the two product lines that has got the highest acquisition numbers in all countries. Right. This acquisition actually helps us a lot in the sense that the card base is a big one for Thailand especially, and it's a very quality card base that allows us to cross-sell deposits. Right? And deposits from a strategic intent is very important because from deposits, you can fund mortgage. From deposits, you can also cross that into wealth. Right? Other key enablers that is important, with this acquisition as well and more so where we can get benefit of scale It's our omni-channel, our digital platform, UOB TMRW, because that will serve a huge portion of the base today, close to 5 million. TMRW is a channel to continue to acquire at a cost-efficient way and to serve in a cost-efficient way. This is a very big mix. In terms of payments, in terms of credit cards, debit cards, and local domestic payment rails as well. The other thing that is critical in our development, you talk about strategic, is data analytics and our AI capabilities. We are building this, and we believe that this will continue and will serve the Citi base very well as we bring the two entities together. Thank you, Eddie. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ica of Kontan. Ica, please turn on your camera. Hello. I am Ica from Kontan Daily Indonesia. I want to some question for Verily and Mr. Wee. First question, does UOB continue to use the Citigroup brand in four country? Second question, will UOB continue the Citigroup credit card business, especially in Indonesia? How is prospect for the credit card business for this year? Thank you. I think the brand question, I answered it. Before we get legal approval, immediately today, nothing changed. Citibank will be using the Citibank branding and will be served by the Citibank network comes legal day one. Okay. For Indonesia, probably, hopefully by the later part of this year. Maybe third or fourth quarter of this year, then we will use the UOB name. That's the first question, where we will keep the brand until legal day one. As for Indonesia itself, I think it's a very big improvement. If you look at the disclosure itself, UOB Indonesia has been hovering around the scale level that we couldn't get. This acquisition actually, from a retail bank standpoint, bring us up nine notches to be around the top bank. More important for card issuance. From number nine, we are actually now in the top five. That actually increased the scale and presence in Indonesia significantly. We believe that the impact on Indonesia for customers and staff will be very big. That's our expectation, looking at the size. With that, like Eddie said, that gives us a big opportunity to look at how we can better serve them through cross-sell, et cetera. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Krishna of Jefferies, who was unable to speak earlier, but he has sent me his questions. The first question from Krishna is whether our outlook in terms of the credit card revenue, given the increasing rates of digital banks, is there a risk of a structural decline? If so, then why are we making this acquisition? The second question is how does the acquisition cost per customer of this transaction compare to our credit card acquisition cost in Singapore market, which he understands it to be much more competitive and lower. You want or Jacquelyn, you want to answer this question specifically on credit cards? Jacqueline, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself and answer the question. With the virtual banks and the digital banks coming in, we do see and we do welcome the healthy competition. With the payment space, I think there are payment space not only for credit card scheme-based credit as well as debit, where the source of funds comes from credit or even a CASA account. In fact, in the last two years, with our investment in digital transformation, we've seen a consistent growth in our digital e-payment space, not only in the scheme base, but also from unsecured but also on the debit card base. We see consistent growth also through local networks, transaction networks, and with the displacement of cash, we see it as a growth story going forward, not only in Singapore but also in the region. His other question was in terms of the acquisition cost per customer of the portfolio versus our credit card acquisition cost in Singapore. From an acquisition standpoint, because we have multi-channel, multi-pronged acquisition, both digitally as well as assisted, the cost of acquisition, I would say within the region, would be close to about maybe, depending on the different markets, maybe 80%-100% to where Singapore is. Again, it's a function of the competitiveness within the market, the channels of acquisition, but I would see it probably about maybe ranging across the market, 80%-100% in terms of CPA to where Singapore is. Thank you, Jac. A quick reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function, click on the reactions icon at the bottom of your screen, third button from the right, and select Raise Hand and turn on your camera. We have one more question from Goola from The Edge. Goola, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Yes. Hi, hello. This question is, what is the real rationale of acquiring Citi given the trend towards Web 3.0 and DeFi and these digital currencies that we have globally? Her question was basically, why are we making this acquisition of what she sees generally as a traditional business, given the proliferation of Web 3.0, central bank digital currencies, et cetera? I think it's a two-pronged approach. I think this is the portfolio we buy over instantly. There is a big base that we can work on already. Complemented by our TMRW. All these countries are big countries, Thailand, Indonesia. We need two approach to make it work effectively to get the scale. As what we work out, this acquisition will put us ahead for five years, our consumer, because the speed to market is very, very important. We need to scale, we need to cross-sell. While the TMRW is we still have a dedicated team to work on it. It's a parallel approach. I think I've always spoke about the important part of it is not an acquisition itself, but also the ability for them to transact and to service. There will be other products and all that, if digital comes in, we'll be in there, and we make sure that they will be able to transact itself. This is the high-end of the customers that we know with a proven track record that has the money, and we can cross-sell significantly. How we cross-sell it is where we will put more emphasis, our omni-channel base, which is actually a combination of product, digital, and physical, will be able to enhance that cross-sell feature. We'll continue with the digital acquisition, but the traditional digital acquisition takes time for them to go through, to prove, to season and all. This is a base that comes through that immediately we can able to start selling and make it profitable. With the success rate in our mind, we are a lot more confident. This is a base that has been worked on, Citi has been looking at it quite professionally, and we believe we can continue or enhance that. That's why I can actually immediately bring my profitability forward. I utilize some my capital to bring it forward to enhance the return immediately. In other acquisitions, the enhancement of the return will take a lot longer. In previous acquisitions that we do, normally, when you buy something, you either buy a customer base, they don't have product, they don't have staff. This has a good customer base, good product, and good staff. That actually enables us to immediately bring the synergies straight away up in front, rather the traditional way that I need to spend two, three years worrying about integration, worrying about managing quality of the customers and all. This one, I don't really have that problem. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Adeline of The Edge Malaysia. Adeline, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Please turn on your camera. Hi. Hello, Doug. Hi, everyone. I'd just like to ask, is there any part of the consumer banking assets in the four markets that were up for sale that UOB will not be acquiring? Were any parts of it carved out? Also, those acquisitions include non-performing loans? If so, how big is the proportion of NPLs to the total assets? Thank you. Okay, wonderful. Okay. No, we are acquiring the whole thing that is in scope. We didn't cut out any part of it. That's the first question, we take all. For the case of Malaysia has the biggest secure portfolio as compared to the rest. We are very comfortable understanding and knowing that mortgage market in Malaysia. The second part is on NPLs. Their NPL ratios are actually comparable to us. We have seen them manage it over the cycles. They do the same thing, and this was a good test because we saw it during the COVID. We see them making provisions, and we see the performance of it. It's quite resilient. It's very resilient, in fact. I don't think the NPL ratios are significantly higher than us. In fact, they are equivalent. As a result, like I said, we are quite comfortable with the asset quality that we are taking over. Thank you, Wai Fai. Our next question is from Natalie Choy of The Business Times. Natalie, please turn on your camera, unmute yourself, and ask your question. Hello. Hi, Mr. Wee Ee Cheong, Mr. Li. I just wanted to know how big is UOB's card business in the region? With this acquisition, is it a big focus to scale up? I can answer, but I may not be accurate. Can I get Jacquelyn, how big is our card business in the region combined together, including Citibank, right? Natalie, this, in combination, will double our credit card business within the region, and that's why you would see our positioning across our key markets, across whether it's Malaysia, Thailand, or Indonesia, taking the top few positions. From a card perspective today, in the region, we will double this acquisition and the contribution of the card income to our overall group because we are in a very balanced business across credit cards, deposit, mortgage, as well as wealth management business. This will bring our cards business roughly from one-quarter from where we are as a group, to north of 35%. Thank you, Jac. Thank you everyone, and that is all the time that we have for today. We hope you found our discussion today compelling, and we apologize for the audio quality. The recording will be available on our investor relations website later today. Please contact our investor relations or strategic communications team if we were unable to get to your question or you require further clarifications. Thank you for joining us today, and we wish you a good day ahead.