DBS

The Singapore lender is looking to India in search of new business and growth opportunities, its chief executive Piyush Gupta tells Euromoney. Long term, it aims to emulate onshore the country’s best private-sector lenders, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra.

It has become fashionable to describe private credit as an opaque and fast inflating bubble that could bring crisis to the global financial system. But in Asia even banks and regulators hope it will grow to bridge the yawning financing gap.

Singapore’s DBS Bank has spent the past decade transforming itself into one of the world’s best digital banks. But a series of lengthy service outages over the past year has wrongfooted senior management, who have been left to issue apologies and pledge to do better.

Tan Su Shan has worked in some of the biggest banks in the world’s busiest financial centres. Her varied experience has proved crucial in making her voice heard in a male-dominated industry.

Singapore has whittled the bidders for its five digital banking licences down from 21 to 14; several are well-funded partnerships with Chinese backers and a track record in disruption. But has Covid-19 moved the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s goalposts?

Many Filipinos switched to digital channels during lockdown. Bankers think customers are unlikely to return to branches now that they have had a taste of what it is like to go cashless. That would be good for banks – and for financial inclusion.

Of all the financial institutions to watch in Asia, when it comes to digital banking, DBS is the one to focus on, having set the template for banks across the world to follow.

Singaporean bank adds to Indian franchise, but profitability of new ventures remains some way off.