The global banking environment, still navigating the aftershocks of US-China trade tensions, elevated interest rates, and a battered commercial real estate sector, United Overseas Bank’s Q4 2025 earnings briefing offered something increasingly rare: measured reassurance. The Singapore lender’s leadership told analysts and investors on Monday that provisions set aside for its most closely watched exposures—Greater China and US commercial real estate—remain more than sufficient, even as the broader sector braces for a prolonged period of uncertainty.

For investors who have spent the better part of two years watching regional bank balance sheets with a mix of hope and dread, that message carries real weight.

Slowing Bad-Debt Formation: A Quiet but Meaningful Shift

Perhaps the most encouraging signal from UOB’s Q4 briefing was the deceleration in new non-performing asset (NPA) formation. The bank recorded S$599 million in new NPA formation in Q4 2025, a meaningful improvement from the S$838 million logged in Q3. That’s a quarter-on-quarter decline of roughly 29%—not a dramatic reversal, but in the language of credit risk, a deceleration of that magnitude deserves attention.

To put it plainly: bad debts are still forming, but they’re forming more slowly. In credit cycle terms, this is often the first sign that the worst may be passing.

Group CFO Leong Yung Chee, speaking at the briefing alongside Deputy Chairman and CEO Wee Ee Cheong, characterised pre-emptive provisions for commercial real estate “hot spots” in Greater China and the United States as adequate buffers against potential future bad debts. That language—pre-emptive—is telling. UOB did not wait for losses to crystallise before building reserves. It anticipated stress and prepared for it. As Bloomberg has reported, Singapore banks have faced persistent scrutiny over their Hong Kong and China property loan exposures, making this kind of forward provisioning strategically critical.

Adequate Buffers for High-Risk Exposures

The headlines around UOB’s Greater China and US portfolios have not always been comfortable reading. But the numbers presented Monday suggest the bank has managed these concentrations with discipline.

On US commercial real estate, the CFO confirmed that problematic loans account for approximately 1% of UOB’s local US portfolio—a figure that, in the context of what has unfolded in American office and retail property markets since 2022, is remarkably contained. For context, several mid-tier US regional banks have seen CRE stress levels multiples higher, contributing to a string of failures and near-misses that Reuters has documented extensively.

For Greater China, the bank’s pre-emptive provisioning strategy has been running since the early tremors in China’s property sector became impossible to ignore. With Chinese developer defaults and Hong Kong office vacancies still elevated, UOB’s conservative stance now looks prescient rather than overcautious.

Key Metrics at a Glance:

The halving of allowances for credit and other losses—from S$227 million a year earlier to S$113 million in Q4 2025—reflects lower specific allowances, a signal that the bank is not being forced into emergency provisioning on newly distressed assets. That’s a meaningful distinction.

Stable NPL Ratio and an Unchanged Credit Outlook

UOB’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio held steady at 1.5% in Q4, unchanged from the prior quarter. Stability here is underrated. In an environment where several global banks have seen NPL ratios creep upward under the combined weight of higher-for-longer interest rates and slowing trade volumes, a flat 1.5% is a credible result.

The bank also maintained its credit cost guidance at 25 to 30 basis points for the period ahead—a range that signals neither complacency nor alarm. It reflects an institution that has stress-tested its books honestly and arrived at a considered, defensible estimate of forward losses.

How UOB Compares to Its Singapore Peers

UOB does not operate in a vacuum. Singapore’s banking sector—anchored by the “Big Three” of DBS, OCBC, and UOB—is among the most closely watched in Asia, and cross-peer comparison matters to both investors and regulators.

DBS Group, Singapore’s largest bank, reported a 10% drop in Q4 net profit, weighed down by rising allowances and fee income headwinds. That result rattled some investors, though DBS management attributed a portion of the provision build to proactive risk management rather than asset deterioration. OCBC, meanwhile, has been expected to report relatively stable net interest margins (NIMs) as its asset-liability mix has benefited from the elevated rate environment—though NIM compression risk remains live as global central banks edge toward easing cycles.

Against this backdrop, UOB’s Q4 print reads as the more cautiously optimistic of the three. It has neither DBS’s sharp profit dip nor the NIM sensitivity questions surrounding OCBC. What it does have is a provisioning track record that appears, at least for now, to have gotten ahead of the curve.

Broader Economic Implications for ASEAN Banking

The UOB briefing is not just a story about one bank. It is a data point in a much larger narrative about how ASEAN’s financial institutions are navigating a world reshaped by US-China strategic competition, deglobalization pressures, and the slow unwinding of the post-pandemic rate cycle.

The Financial Times and The Economist have both noted that Southeast Asian banks occupy a peculiar geopolitical sweet spot—exposed to both the Chinese economic sphere and the dollar-denominated global financial system, and therefore vulnerable to friction in both directions. UOB, with its pan-ASEAN franchise spanning Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, is particularly exposed to trade flow disruptions. If US tariffs on Chinese goods accelerate supply chain reshuffling into Southeast Asia, UOB could benefit from the financing boom that tends to accompany such relocations. If, however, the tariff regime suppresses regional growth broadly, credit quality across its ASEAN book faces pressure.

The credit cost guidance range of 25 to 30 basis points implicitly acknowledges this dual-sided risk. It is conservative enough to absorb a modest deterioration in the macro environment, but not so elevated as to suggest the bank sees a crisis on the horizon.

Conclusion: Resilience Maintained, Vigilance Required

UOB’s Q4 2025 earnings briefing delivered what its leadership likely hoped for: a credible narrative of stability without complacency. The slowdown in NPA formation, the adequacy of Greater China and US CRE buffers, the unchanged NPL ratio, and the maintained credit cost guidance all tell a story of an institution that managed its risks carefully through a turbulent year.

But the story is not finished. US commercial real estate faces structural challenges that are unlikely to be resolved within a single business cycle. Greater China’s property sector remains in a drawn-out adjustment. And the geopolitical environment—US-China trade friction, rate uncertainty, ASEAN growth volatility—continues to generate tail risks that no provision buffer can fully insulate against.

What Monday’s briefing demonstrated is that UOB entered 2026 with its balance sheet integrity intact and its risk management credibility undamaged. For the Singapore banking sector resilience in Q4 2025, that may be the most important headline of all.

Four years ago today, the world held its breath as Russian armor rolled toward Kyiv, expecting a sovereign nation’s rapid collapse. Today, on February 24, 2026, the geopolitical narrative has fundamentally shifted from sheer survival to the brutal, complex mechanics of a resolution. Standing in Independence Square near a makeshift memorial of flags honoring fallen soldiers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cast a profound look toward the future. But it was his candid, newly published Financial Times Zelenskyy interview that sent immediate ripples through the corridors of power in Washington, Brussels, and Moscow. The Ukraine war end is no longer a distant abstraction. We are, in his exact words, at the “beginning of the end.”

However, this final chapter is fraught with diplomatic landmines. As the world digests the latest Ukraine war updates, Zelenskyy’s core message wasn’t just directed at his weary citizens or European allies; it was a targeted, urgent plea to U.S. President Donald Trump. His goal? To ensure Washington doesn’t fall for the Russia games Trump might be tempted to entertain in his quest for a historic diplomatic victory.

“The Beginning of the End”: Decoding Zelenskyy’s Strategy

In international diplomacy, vocabulary is everything. By declaring the conflict is at the “beginning of the end,” Zelenskyy is signaling a transition from indefinite attrition to the tactical positioning that precedes an armistice. He is acknowledging the realities of a war-weary globe while firmly attempting to dictate the terms of the endgame.

In his extensive interview, Zelenskyy clarified that the “beginning of the end” does not equate to an immediate surrender or a hasty territorial compromise. Instead, it marks the phase where military stalemates force genuine structural negotiations. The recent trilateral Geneva negotiations on February 18, 2026, underscored this shift. Zelenskyy described the talks as arduous, noting that while political consensus remains out of reach, tangible progress was achieved on military de-escalation protocols.

“Putin is this war. He is the cause of its beginning and the obstacle to its end. And it is Russia that must be put in its place so that there is real peace.” — Volodymyr Zelenskyy, February 24, 2026

Seeing Through Putin’s “Games”: A Warning to Washington

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has undeniably accelerated the push for a negotiated settlement. Following the highly scrutinized Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in late 2025, anxiety has permeated Kyiv. The underlying fear is that Washington might broker a transactional deal over Ukraine’s head, exchanging Ukrainian sovereignty for a perceived geopolitical win against the backdrop of rising U.S.-China tensions.

Zelenskyy’s challenge to the U.S. President is blunt: come to Kyiv. “Only by coming to Ukraine and seeing with one’s own eyes our life and our struggle… can one understand what this war is really about,” Zelenskyy stated during his anniversary address.

He explicitly warned that Trump Russia Ukraine tripartite dynamics are being actively manipulated by Moscow. During Putin peace talks, the Kremlin’s proposals are not olive branches but tactical Trojan horses—designed to weaken Kyiv’s negotiating position and exploit the new U.S. administration’s desire for a swift resolution. “The Russians are playing games,” Zelenskyy noted, stressing that the Kremlin has no serious, good-faith intention of ending the war unless forced by overwhelming leverage.

[Map of the current line of contact in Eastern Ukraine and proposed ceasefire monitoring zones]

The Mechanics of Peace: Security Guarantees and Ceasefire Monitoring

A ceasefire without enforcement is merely a tactical pause for rearmament—a painful lesson Ukraine learned between 2014 and 2022. This is the crux of the current diplomatic deadlock. However, the February 18 Geneva talks highlighted that military pragmatism is slowly taking shape.

Crucially, the sides have reportedly resolved the logistical framework for monitoring a prospective ceasefire, which would include direct US participation ceasefire oversight. This represents a massive geopolitical pivot, particularly given the Trump administration’s historical reluctance to commit American resources abroad, though it stops short of deploying U.S. combat troops.

To prevent a future invasion, Kyiv is demanding ironclad Ukraine ceasefire guarantees before any guns fall silent. As analyzed by foreign policy experts at The Washington Post, vague promises will not suffice.

Proposed Security Frameworks vs. Historical Precedents

The Economic Battlefield: Tariffs, Sanctions, and EU Accession

You cannot divorce the geopolitical reality of the conflict’s resolution from the ongoing global macroeconomic shifts. As of February 2026, the international economy is digesting President Trump’s newly implemented 10% global tariff, creating a complex web of leverage and friction among Western allies.

For Ukraine, the endgame is not merely about drawing lines on a map; it is about securing the economic viability required to rebuild its shattered infrastructure and advance its European Union accession. According to insights from The New York Times, Western aid must now transition from emergency military provisions to long-term economic reconstruction capital.

[Chart illustrating the comparative economic contraction and recovery projections of Russia and Ukraine from 2022 to 2026]

Russia, meanwhile, continues to operate a hyper-militarized war economy. While Moscow projects resilience, the structural rot is becoming impossible to hide. The Bloomberg commodities index reflects how Western sanctions have forced Russia to pivot its energy exports to Asian markets at steep discounts, fundamentally restructuring the global energy grid and slashing the Kremlin’s long-term revenue streams.

The Economic Attrition of the War (2022–2026)

Expert Analysis: The Realities of Global Geopolitics in 2026

When we analyze the Zelenskyy beginning of the end statement through the lens of geopolitics 2026, it is clear this is a calculated narrative pivot. As international relations researchers at The Economist note, Zelenskyy is preemptively framing the narrative. By calling out Russia’s “games” publicly, he is boxing the Trump administration into a corner where any concession to Putin looks like American weakness rather than diplomatic pragmatism.

Europe, meanwhile, is stepping up. The “coalition of the willing”—spearheaded by the UK, France, and a re-arming Germany—recognizes that the continent can no longer rely solely on the American security umbrella. If the U.S. forces a bitter peace, Europe will be left dealing with the fallout of an emboldened, revanchist Russia on its borders.

Conclusion: Forging a Durable Peace

The fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion is a somber reminder of the staggering human cost of this conflict. As Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit Independence Square and witness the “sea of pain” firsthand, the message is unmistakable: peace cannot be signed on a spreadsheet or dictated from a summit in Alaska. It must be forged in reality, backed by unshakeable security guarantees, and grounded in the acknowledgment that rewarding aggression only guarantees future wars.

The “beginning of the end” is here. The question now is whether the Western alliance, led by a highly transactional U.S. administration, has the strategic patience to ensure that the end results in a lasting, just peace—or merely a countdown to the next conflict.

Explore President Trump’s upcoming 2026 SOTU address amid record-low approval and political turmoil—insights on the US economy, immigration, and foreign policy shifts.

A year after reclaiming the White House in a historic political comeback, President Donald Trump will step up to the House rostrum on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET to deliver his State of the Union address. The political climate he faces, however, is one of unusual fragility. Midway between his inauguration and the critical November midterm elections, this 2026 SOTU preview reveals a commander-in-chief confronting a partial government shutdown, rare judicial rebukes, and deep fractures within his own coalition.

When Trump last addressed Congress in March 2025, his approval rating hovered near a career high, buoyed by the momentum of his return to power. Today, he faces an electorate thoroughly fatigued by persistent inflation and systemic gridlock. Tuesday’s address is intended to showcase a leader who has unapologetically reshaped the federal government. Yet, as the Trump State of the Union amid low polls approaches, the spectacle will inevitably be weighed against the stark economic and political realities defining his second act.

Sagging Polls and Economic Realities

Historically, Trump has leveraged economic metrics as his strongest political shield. But the US economy under Trump 2026 presents a complicated picture for international economist researchers and everyday voters alike. According to recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, while the stock market has seen notable rallies, 2025 marked the slowest year for job and economic growth since the pandemic-induced recession of 2020.

A recent Gallup tracking poll places his overall approval rating near record lows. Furthermore, roughly two-thirds of Americans currently describe the nation’s economy as “poor”—a sentiment that mirrors the frustrations felt during the latter half of the Biden administration. Grocery, housing, and utility costs remain stubbornly high. Analysts at The Economist note that the US labor market has settled into a stagnant “low-hire, low-fire” equilibrium, heavily exacerbated by sweeping trade restrictions.

Trump has vehemently defended his record, insisting last week that he has “won” on affordability. In his address, he is widely expected to blame his predecessor, Joe Biden, for lingering systemic economic pain while claiming unilateral credit for recent Wall Street highs.

Immigration Backlash and Shutdown Stalemate

Adding to the drama of the evening, Tuesday will mark the first time in modern US history that a president delivers the annual joint address amid a funding lapse. The partial government shutdown, now in its second week, centers entirely on the Department of Homeland Security.

Funding for DHS remains frozen as Democratic lawmakers demand stringent guardrails on the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. The standoff reached a boiling point following the deaths of two American citizens by federal agents during border protests in January. This tragic incident sparked nationwide outrage and eroded what was once a core political advantage for the President. An AP-NORC poll recently revealed that approval of Trump’s handling of immigration has plummeted to just 38%. The political capital he once commanded on border security is now deeply contested territory.

The Supreme Court Rebuke and Congressional Dynamics

Trump will be speaking to a Republican-led Congress that he has frequently bypassed. While he secured the passage of his signature tax legislation last summer—dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which combined corporate tax cuts and immigration enforcement funding with deep reductions to Medicaid—he has largely governed via executive order.

This aggressive use of executive authority recently hit a massive judicial roadblock. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, a central pillar of his economic agenda. In a pointed majority opinion, Trump-nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch warned against the “permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man.”

This ruling has massive implications for global trade. Financial analysts at The Financial Times suggest that the removal of these tariffs could ease some inflationary pressures, though Trump has already vowed to pursue alternative legal mechanisms to keep import taxes active, promising prolonged uncertainty for international markets.

Simultaneously, Trump’s coalition is showing signs of fraying:

• Demographic Shifts: Americans under 45 have sharply turned against the administration.
• Latino Voters: A demographic that shifted rightward in 2024 has seen steep drops in approval following January’s border violence.
• Intra-Party Apathy: Nearly three in 10 Republicans report that the administration is failing to focus on the country’s most pressing structural problems.

Trump Foreign Policy Shifts and Global Tensions

Foreign policy is expected to feature heavily in the address, highlighting one of the most unpredictable evolutions of his second term. Candidate Trump campaigned heavily on an “America First” platform, promising to extract the US from costly foreign entanglements. However, Trump foreign policy shifts over the last twelve months have alarmed both critics and isolationist allies.

The administration has dramatically expanded US military involvement abroad. Operations have ranged from seizing Venezuela’s president and bolstering forces around Iran to authorizing a lethal campaign of strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels—operations that have resulted in scores of casualties. For global observers and defense analysts at The Washington Post, this muscular, interventionist approach contradicts his earlier populist rhetoric, creating unease among voters who favored a pullback from global policing.

What to Expect: A Trump Midterm Rally Speech

Despite the mounting pressures, Trump is unlikely to strike a chastened or conciliatory tone. Observers should expect a classic Trump midterm rally speech.

“It’s going to be a long speech because we have a lot to talk about,” Trump teased on Monday.

Key themes to watch for include:

1. Defending the First Year: Aggressive framing of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” and an insistence that manufacturing is successfully reshoring.
2. Attacking the Courts and Democrats: Expect pointed rhetoric regarding the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling and the ongoing DHS shutdown.
3. Political Theater: Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has urged his caucus to maintain a “strong, determined and dignified presence,” but several progressive members have already announced plans to boycott the speech in silent protest. For details on streaming the event, see our guide on How to Watch Trump’s State of the Union.

Conclusion: A Test of Presidential Leverage

For a president who has built a global brand on dominance and disruption, Tuesday’s State of the Union represents a profoundly different kind of test. The visual of Trump speaking from the dais while parts of his own government remain shuttered and his signature tariffs sit dismantled by his own judicial appointees is a potent symbol of his current vulnerability.

The core question for international markets and domestic voters alike is no longer whether Trump can shock the system, but whether he can stabilize it. To regain his footing ahead of the November midterms, he must persuade a highly skeptical public that his combative priorities align with their economic needs—and prove that his second act in the White House is anchored by strategy rather than adrift in grievance.