IBF Awards

Koh Chin Chin is the Managing Director and Head of Group Treasury, Research and Customer Advocacy at UOB.  In her Group Treasury role, she formulates the Group funding strategy, manages the Group’s strategic asset liability management function and debt issuance activities.

Specifically in the debt issuance space, her multi-year strategy established UOB as a frequent issuer in the key markets and adopted a more strategic lens in promoting industry-related initiatives. 

Chin Chin is a pioneer member of The ABS Standing Committee on Covered Bonds that collectively created a strong Singapore Covered Bond brand. Seizing an opportunity arising from the European quantitative easing and its CBPP3 implementation, UOB took the Singapore Covered Bond to the deepest investor market in Europe in 2016 and to the GBP market in 2018, championing the relative attractiveness of Singapore Covered Bond. UOB also championed for SGX listing with its debut bond being the first non-EU listed non-Eurozone covered bond. UOB issued regularly to build global investors’ confidence and interest given Singapore was a small market, and across key tenors actively to develop a benchmark pricing curve for Singapore issuers. Today Singapore Covered Bond brand is well received by the global investor community, with issuance volume at ~SGD40bn.

In 2018, she initiated engagement with relevant government authorities to pave the way for Singapore issuers to have access to the Panda bond market, and to promote financial markets connectivity between China and Singapore.  UOB issued the first Panda bond from Singapore in March 2019.

In 2021 she kickstarted adoption of SORA-OIS for SGD capital instruments, with a broader view to promote the adoption of a SORA-based pricing benchmark in the SGD bond market.  In the same year, she issued the first sustainability bond from Singapore to create awareness around the need for Asia’s progressive transition.

Chin Chin also led the development of a new Repo structure, in close collaboration with MAS, to allow D-SIBs in Singapore to pledge Singapore residential mortgages under the MAS SGD Term Facility.

All these efforts culminated in several awards to UOB over the years, including 2019 Issuer of the Year award by IFR Asia for its strategic thinking and nimble execution in the capital markets, 2023 Best Issuer for Financial Institutions by Finance Asia and 2023 Best Issuer for 25 years in Asia’s financial markets by The Asset. She was also awarded 2023 Best Treasurer for Financial Institutions by The Corporate Treasurer.