uab bank
Running a bank during the Covid-19 crisis in Myanmar is hard enough. Throw in a military coup and the situation becomes far worse.
Privately owned uab bank faced these challenges head on, winning several of Asiamoney’s awards – best domestic bank in Myanmar for 2022, best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises and best for environmental, social and governance.
uab suffered a tough three months immediately after the military coup on February 1, 2021. About 30% of the bank’s employees did not show up for work because they were too afraid to venture out during the political turmoil and street protests. uab chose to respect every individual's, member of staff's and customer's decision as much as possible.
The firm paid all its employees in full during that period, between February and April. It then gave them the option of either leaving or staying on, says Christopher Loh, chief executive and managing director of uab bank.
In the end, there were no layoffs: instead, uab hired more than 200 employees in 2021 and is now hiring another 2,000 for its sales teams.
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