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OCBC SME Index Q4 2025

"Productivity gains through AI and digital transformation can also help SMEs manage rising costs."

§ 01 — Methodology

How the report was conducted.

Quarterly survey of 1,000 SG SME owners. Index reading combines payment behaviour, expectation surveys, and trade-payment data from OCBC business accounts.

§ 02 — Verbatim quote (no paraphrase)

"The OCBC SME Index rose to 50.8 in 4Q 2025, remaining in expansion territory… Productivity gains through AI and digital transformation can also help SMEs manage rising costs."

— OCBC, SME Index Q4 2025

§ 03 — What the report actually says

Breakdown by what we cite

§ 04 — Additional findings

Context we don't cite directly but relied on.

• OCBC explicitly recommends AI + digital transformation as the wage-pressure remedy.
• Trade collections grew 1.7% on-year while payments remained flat.
• Geopolitical uncertainty + US tariffs identified as top external risks.
• 4 in 10 SMEs identified geopolitical concerns as their biggest worry.

§ 05 — Why this matters for your business

The application.

When Singapore's second-largest bank publicly prescribes AI + digital transformation as the answer to wage compression, it removes the "is this hype?" objection. Our playbook operationalises exactly what OCBC recommends — the 12 templates are how SG SMEs actually capture those productivity gains.

§ 06 — Read the original

Two ways to verify.

We don't paraphrase. The original report is publicly available — download our archived copy below, or visit the publisher directly.

We archive every cited PDF locally so the link never breaks. You can download our copy above, or grab the latest version directly from the publisher's site.

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