SINGAPORE, May 7 (Reuters) - Singapore's United Overseas Bank, or UOB, will resume giving 2025 guidance when the impact of U.S. tariffs becomes clearer, it said on Wednesday after posting a stable first-quarter net profit that missed expectations.
"Macroeconomic uncertainties from the U.S. tariffs have triggered significant market volatility and disruptions in global trade," said UOB Deputy Chairman and CEO Wee Ee Cheong in a statement.
"We anticipate a slowdown in global growth in the near term and remain vigilant amid the uncertain global outlook."
UOB, the first Singaporean lender to report this earnings season, follows other major global banks in highlighting the threat to economic growth from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.
HSBC, which reported results last week, forecast worsening loan demand and credit quality due to growing trade tensions.
Standard Chartered, whose first-quarter results on Friday beat expectations, warned that major deals could be put on hold if trade tensions persisted.
UOB, Southeast Asia's third-largest bank by assets, reported S$1.49 billion ($1.16 billion) in net profit, unchanged from the year-ago quarter, due to factors including record fee income and robust loan growth. This was slightly below the mean estimate of around S$1.5 billion of two analysts polled by LSEG.
Net fee income rose 20%, boosted by strong growth in loan-related and wealth activities, but non-interest income eased from lower trading and investment income.
UOB believes in the resilience and long-term potential of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Wee said. "We expect flows within ASEAN and between ASEAN and the rest of the world to continue growing as countries seek new ways to prosper."
Wee also highlighted other opportunities amid uncertainties, including growing client demand for hedging and a healthy pipeline of infrastructure financing.
First-quarter credit costs rose to 35 basis points as UOB set aside an additional pre-emptive allowance to boost coverage for potential loan losses due to growing macroeconomic uncertainties.
Net interest margin, a key gauge of profitability, dropped to 2.00% from 2.02% in the year-ago quarter.
Larger rivals DBS Group and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation are scheduled to report results on May 8 and 9 respectively.
($1 = 1.2879 Singapore dollars)