Taiwan's partner in a new Asia: Inside Cathay United Bank's regional growth strategy
Takeaways
Cathay United Bank (CUB), one of Taiwan’s top-performing banks, is expanding across Asia to support Taiwanese companies adapting to shifting global dynamics like rising tariffs and changing supply chains. With 67 overseas locations, including presence in 9 of 11 ASEAN countries, CUB offers financial tools to help firms manage cross-border operations, particularly in fast-growing markets like Vietnam, where it has established a significant footprint.
CUB provides localized banking services including trade finance, digital banking, and market insights to help businesses navigate regulatory shifts and economic uncertainty. It supports clients across Southeast Asia with cross-border expertise and has launched green finance initiatives in Vietnam and the Philippines, including sustainability-linked loans and wind energy project financing, reflecting alignment with regional development goals.
CUB is enhancing digital offerings across Asia, including the launch of mobile credit apps in Vietnam and Cambodia, and is investing in AI and cybersecurity to improve customer experience. Its “One Bank” strategy drives expansion into India and Japan, aiming to become Asia’s leading regional bank by leveraging its digital capabilities, regional integration, and deep local knowledge.
Summary by Bloomberg AI
Taiwanese businesses are adapting to a fast-changing global order as tariffs, geopolitics and divergent growth trajectories threaten established business models while creating new opportunities for growth. To adjust and capitalize, firms are diversifying supply chains, broadening their manufacturing base and tapping into previously overlooked markets.
Helping companies with the right financial tools and strategic support is Cathay United Bank (CUB), a subsidiary of Taiwanese financial conglomerate Cathay Financial Holdings serving the island’s major firms. Today, it ranks as one of Taiwan’s biggest banks[1] and its best-performing, according to a recent ranking by The Banker.[2]
CUB operates in 67 overseas locations, with a footprint across the Greater China region and nine ASEAN countries, offering products and solutions that span everything from corporate banking, consumer banking and private wealth management to insurance. Its overseas expansion has been driven primarily by the needs of its corporate clients, particularly those navigating cross-border supply chains and regional investment.
Having recognized early how Taiwanese enterprises were relocating production bases to Southeast Asia due to rising labor costs in mainland China, CUB has steadily expanded its footprint across ASEAN, where GDP more than doubled[3] from 2009 to 2022. Vietnam is already its ‘second home’, and the bank plans to increase staffing and capabilities to support a fast-digitalizing economy with a young, tech-savvy population.
With a strong presence across ASEAN, CUB supports Taiwanese businesses by integrating group resources such as life insurance, general insurance, banking, securities and asset management. As Benny Miao noted in an interview with Bloomberg, the bank continues to expand in key markets like Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, and is preparing to enter India and Japan—reinforcing its commitment to delivering scalable, long-term financial solutions wherever its clients grow.
Guided by its “One Bank” vision to deliver integrated, customer-centric services across Asia, CUB is also expanding into India and Japan to support both Taiwanese and local enterprises in these markets. The bank is also strengthening its presence in the financial hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong.
Regional Presence, Local Knowledge
As they venture into new territories, Taiwanese businesses need a deeper understanding of local market dynamics. Through its offices across Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Laos and Myanmar, CUB helps firms expand while using familiar banking solutions.
Those include CUB’s trade finance products, including supply chain finance, and its digital banking services, which support cross-border account integration, making it easier for Taiwanese businesses to manage international capital flows.
The bank is also helping clients navigate a fast-changing policy environment that is reshaping the region. In response to tariff uncertainties, for instance, CUB quickly helped Taiwanese enterprises in mitigating risks by diversifying their sales markets and supply chains. It provided market insights through financial seminars on global economic and tariff policies, thereby helping clients understand trends, assess risks and adjust strategies.
CUB’s support is made possible by understanding the nuances of each ASEAN market, from customer demographics to sourcing opportunities. The bank’s cross-border service teams are deeply embedded in Southeast Asia, supporting Taiwanese businesses with localized expertise and digital capabilities. As Miao noted in his Bloomberg interview, Vietnam has become a second home for the bank, and CUB is actively building technical capacity to serve a young, tech-savvy population.
Those teams offer end-to-end financial services from investment exploration to assistance in establishing offices and operations. The bank has also developed financial instruments to support national economic priorities, including real estate and hospitality in Cambodia and green finance in Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines.
In Vietnam, CUB’s Ho Chi Minh City branch has launched green loan programs, including green building financing for ICT companies, and collaborated on syndicated loans with Vietnamese financial institutions, and worked with the Asian Development Bank to finance Vietnam’s largest onshore wind power project. In the Philippines, CUB’s Manila branch signed a sustainability-linked loan (SLL) of approximately NT$675 million (US$22 million) with PrimeAsset, the holding company of the Villar Group, the first such SLL in the Philippines market.
A Competitive Edge
CUB’s focus on digital excellence, achieved by leveraging data and emerging technologies, provides users with a seamless experience across markets and tools geared to individual needs. For instance, business users can flexibly utilize funds and enhance efficiencies through integrated accounts on its global corporate online banking platform. CUB is also upskilling its teams in the use of new tech to improve operations while constantly strengthening cybersecurity and privacy controls.
Alongside its corporate banking and private banking services, CUB is expanding its digital offerings in consumer finance, replicating Taiwan’s digital experience overseas with the goal of becoming a digital consumer finance benchmark among Taiwanese banks in Southeast Asia.
In late 2024, the bank launched the "CUB Vietnam App" digital credit service, featuring a revolving credit limit mechanism where users need only apply once and, upon approval, can draw multiple times within the credit limit for up to five years. The entire process operates through mobile phone, with loan approval and disbursement taking as little as fifteen minutes. By September 2025, registered users exceeded 600,000, with 4.7 million cumulative downloads.
In Cambodia, CUB launched the mBanking App, which connects to the national clearing and transaction system Bakong, becoming the first Taiwanese bank locally to offer digital account opening successfully integrated with the national clearing system. CUB has also collaborated with Mastercard to launch the CUBC Online Card Payment Service, offering both merchants and consumers a fast, simple and digitalized means for secure and convenient transactions. These tools are helping to deepen consumer access to finance in the increasingly digitalized landscape of emerging Southeast Asian nations.
Ready for the New Asia
Following decades of strong growth and deepening globalization, Asia faces a new and volatile economic environment, which poses a challenge for businesses across the region. A new era, characterized by fragmentation and the re-orientation of supply chains, will bring winners and losers.
This is also true for Taiwanese companies, which have played a formative role in building the technologies that made the modern world and now need to adapt. CUB, given its wide and growing presence across ASEAN and beyond, can be their natural ally, helping them identify and harness the growth engines of tomorrow.
To that end, CUB will leverage its key strengths—localized operations, meticulous service, and regional networks and platforms—to help clients succeed in new markets.
As Benny Miao shared in his Bloomberg interview, CUB is actively expanding its regional footprint under the One Bank vision, with plans to deepen investment in key markets such as Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, while preparing to enter India and Japan.
As regional economies evolve, the bank continues to monitor market trends and accelerate its overseas development, aiming to become Asia’s leading regional bank.
