Strategy

In February 2011, we announced New Horizons III, our 5-year strategy for 2011 to 2015. This strategy continues the board direction and builds on the successes of our New Horizons I (2003 to 2005) and New Horizons II (2006 to 2010) strategies.

Under New Horizons, we transformed and integrated our Malaysia operations, and expanded our regional network through strategic investments in Indonesia and China.

Under New Horizons II, we improved our market position in Singapore and Malaysia, and strengthened our presence in Indonesia and China. We also expanded our wealth management franchise accross multiple product and distribution platforms and customer segments.

The New Horizons III strategy focuses on the following key elements:

We will continue our disciplined approach to drive performance improvement through a balanced business scorecard, focusing on customers, products, risk management, productivity, people and shareholder value.

Customers

We aim to sustain our top 3 consumer banking position and become one of the top 3 corporate banks in the combined Singapore-Malaysia market.

Products

We will build more best-in-class products and strive to become known for product innovation by sustaining 15% revenue contribution from new products annually.
We aim to be one of the top 3 banks for wealth management, credit cards and unsecured lending in the combined Singapore-Malaysia market.

Risk management

We will expand our balance sheet proactively to deliver enhanced risk-return, and execute our Basel II implementation plan in line with regulatory guidelines.
We aim to maintain our position as one of the highest rated banks in Asia-Pacific.

Productivity

We will leverage on our cross-border processing hubs in Singapore and Malaysia to deliver further efficiency gains.
We strive to be an efficient, low-cost service provider.

People

We will build people resources with a focus on diversity, cross-border management skill sets and competencies to support our overseas expansion efforts.
We will maintain our share ownership schemes so that all our employees can easily own OCBC shares.
We aim to continually improve employee satisfaction so that we are increasingly recognised as a regional employer of choice.

Shareholder value

We aim to deliver 10% earnings per share growth annually, as well as achieve and sustain ROE of above 12%.
We will periodically review our target minimum dividend payout of 45% of core earnings for possible increase.
We will continue to divest non-core assets at the right time and invest the gains in core financial services growth opportunities, and return excess capital to shareholders via share buyback programmes.

We will continue to focus on delivering a superior and differentiated customer experience in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

The key elements in improving service delivery include leveraging customer insights to develop and implement superior customer value propositions, focusing on quality and investing in customer experience delivery capabilities across our Group.

Outside our home market, we plan to remain focused on deepening our presence and driving growth in Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China.

We expect to continue to expand our distribution capabilities and strive to expand market share in Malaysia, including Islamic banking and Takaful insurance.

In Indonesia, we intend to build on the enlarged OCBC NISP franchise (following the merger of our two subsidiaries) to invest and grow more effectively through a single business presence.

In China, we plan to expand our business through closer integration of our operations across Greater China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and building our private banking business through Bank of Singapore.

We plan to differentiate ourselves by further leveraging potential synergies among the entities within our Group, which include OCBC Malaysia, OCBC Al-Amin, OCBC NISP, OCBC China, Great Eastern Holdings, Lion Global, Bank of Singapore, OCBC Securities and PacificMas.

We will seek to broaden relationships with our various sets of customers, increase cross-selling and customer referrals across our Group, enhance operational effectiveness by coordinating the development and effective deployment of common corporate resources, and balance organic growth with selective acquisitions that fit our overall franchise.