The Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation reported a year of growth for its wealth management and private banking businesses.

Bank of Singapore, the private banking arm of OCBC, boosted its assets under management by 7 per cent year-on-year to $55 billion in 2015 despite a challenging macroeconomic environment and increased regulatory pressures.

Its earnings asset base, which includes loans that are extended on a secured basis, rose 5 per cent to $68 billion from $65 billion in 2014.

OCBC’s full-year wealth management income, which comprises income from insurance, private banking, asset management, stockbroking and other wealth management products, grew 6 per cent to a record S$2.35 billion ($1.68 billion), up from S$2.22 billion a year ago. As a proportion of the group’s total income, wealth management contributed 27 per cent last year, compared with 28 per cent in 2014. OCBC's core net profit after tax rose 13 per cent to a record S$3.90 billion in 2015.

“The past year has been a challenging one for most industries. The ongoing economic transformation and slowdown in China have created contractionary pressure on regional economies. Global economic growth was slow and was dampened further by a series of geopolitical events. Interest rates remained low for most of 2015 and its recent rise has prompted renewed volatilities in the capital and financial markets. Regulatory expectations have increased and banks are facing higher requirements for capital, liquidity and regulatory compliance,” said OCBC’s chief executive, Samuel Tsien.

“Despite this backdrop, our well-positioned and diversified banking and insurance franchise has enabled us to continue to achieve sustained growth. We delivered record earnings and further strengthened our financial position with strong capital ratios, ample liquidity and comfortable allowance coverage ratios.”

OCBC’s common equity tier one capital adequacy ratio, as at 31 December 2015, was 14.8 per cent.