The first quarter of this year has been tough for banks and other firms but as far as this Singapore-based group is concerned, it was a positive one for its wealth fees. Inflows also partly offset the impact of falling markets.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation’s wealth management arm, which includes its Bank of Singapore private bank, logged a 32 per cent jump in fees for the first three months of 2020 compared with the same quarter of 2019.

Fees stood at S$291 million ($205.9 million), rising from $221 million, OCBC said in a statement. 

Assets under management fell by 4 per cent year-on-year to S$104 billion at the end of March. Falling markets amidst the coronavirus outbreak were partly offset by net new money inflows, the bank said. 

Across the banking group as a whole, net profit fell to S$698 million in Q1 from S$1.232 billion, it said. At the end of March, its cost/income ratio inched higher to 44.5 per cent in Q1 from 40.9 per cent a year before. Return on equity halved to 6 per cent from 12 per cent. 

“As we enter this period of a health crisis that has developed into a global economic crisis, the conservative stance we have always taken to preserve a strong capital, liquidity and funding foundation have served our customers and shareholders well. As you would have noted from our first quarter 2020 performance, the overall fundamentals of our diversified banking, wealth management and insurance businesses remain sound. We paid close watch on our credit portfolio against the market uncertainty, and significantly shored up our allowances on a forward-looking basis,” chief executive Samuel Tsien said.