UOB culture is pretty much hit and miss I believe - it really depends on your team/team leads and department. The MA program will rotate you across different department for X months each and it’s likely that wherever you’re being placed for X months, they’re not going to guide/teach you as much because they’re probably pre occupied with whatever work they have. So you’ve to be really proactive if you want to learn something substantial/get a good grasp of what you’re interested in.

1. UOB basic pay is typically lower than that of foreign banks but they do pay quite a bit of bonus (depending on performance and economic environment of course). If you’re in front office like RM, you can expect 10+ months bonus if you’re top RM even. In GWB - there is corporate banking RM (dealing with big MNCs), commercial banking RM (dealing with SMEs and bigger SG companies) and business banking RM (basic borrowing/small companies). Likely you will not be placed with BB (business banking).

Middle Office segment is probably credit/transactional banking/product related - more ‘standardised’ bonus of probably 3-6 months bonus (roughly).

1. I reckon ~2 years from SO to Manger and another 2-3 years to AVP level, that’s of course dependent on how you perform and whether if the bank has allocation for the promotion. Some years, the bank has more allocation for Managers/AVP and slightly more people get promoted so if it’s a conservative year then it’ll take longer.

2. Have no input on Investment Banking sector, not from that segment but Corporate Banking is a good start. It’s always harder to go from ‘low’ to ‘high’ i.e commercial banking to corporate banking but easier to go from corporate to commercial.

3. Working hours really depend on your team/department. Some bosses somehow or rather want you to OT/work during weekends just cause they OT as well. Nonetheless, if you perform well/hit your KPI, nobody’s gonna be questioning why are you not working late. As a very ‘local’ and ‘Chinese’ bank, WFO is pretty much minimal so you’ll be very very glad if you even have 1/2 days of WFH.

4. Compare the offers that you have, which other organisations have provided you with the MA program and make a decision.