The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) banking segment continues to undergo a process of transformation in terms of how it is connecting and servicing its customer base. Similar to its retail banking counterparts, there is continued and sustained disruption from various fintech players as SME financing remains an underserved segment and funding gaps persist limiting opportunities for enterprises to scale and grow. The top 10 SME banks evaluated from this year’s programme of more than 35 institutions for the Best SME Bank in 2020 completely reflect this paradigm shift.

A key standout is UOB’s BizSmart, a platform of digital business management solutions that gained traction last year with 40% increase in sign-ups and the bank’s suite of solutions for SMEs in Southeast Asia connecting with UOB accounts and facilities. HSBC is also commendable given its decent top line growth in 2019 and having one of the highest NPS scores while also responding emphatically to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Financial performance: UOB leads on key indicators

In 2019 UOB delivered solutions to SMEs that resulted in solid revenue growth for the business and expanded the available market opportunity for the bank across the region. Almost half of total revenue now comes from outside its primary Singapore market. While OCBC showed the better top line growth at +12% for 2019 and CAGR growth at +11% from 2017 to 2019, both HSBC and UOB outperformed OCBC in terms of NIM, CIR and ROA. HSBC outranks both UOB and OCBC in terms of average net income per SME.

Interestingly, HSBC and UOB’s revenue size is almost twice as large as OCBC and both banks had generated almost the same amount of operating revenue in 2019. The second half of 2019 was a particularly challenging year for HSBC in view of trade war and the social unrest as demonstrated by the negative GDP growth in Hong Kong (YoY 3Q: -2.8%, 4Q: -2.9%).  The revenue growth of 1.3% for HS...

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