OCBC to buy NAB's wealth business in Singapore and Hong Kong

NAB has about 11,000 customers across the two cities.

With the hopes of further boosting its wealth management presence in Singapore and Hong Kong, OCBC Bank entered into an agreement to acquire National Australia Bank’s (NAB) Private Wealth business in the two cities.

OCBC will be having access to the business' mortgage portfolio amounting to about US$1.7b worth of mainly residential mortgage loans, and a deposit portfolio made up of about US$3.05b worth of deposits of a mix of currencies. The bank will also have the access to about 11,000 customers of NAB across the two markets.

The transaction is expected to be completed before the end of the year subject to regulatory approval.

The additional mortgage loans will increase the overall size of OCBC Bank’s mortgage portfolio by about 4%, based on its mortgage loans book of $60b as at end March 2017.

“This deal makes financial and strategic sense to us. A mortgage loans book of more than S$2 billion is not small. It would have taken us time and money to grow our mortgage loans organically by that amount. We are now getting an immediate boost to our mortgage loans book," OCBC Bank chief operating officer Ching Wei Hong said.