DBS has suffered, but its model looks well placed in this environment.

China has done very well out of Singapore’s new digital banking regime, with Ant and Tencent both represented. Grab and Singtel fly the local flag.

A new Swiss-Singaporean enterprise styles itself as the world’s first digital asset bank. It is regulated, resembles the structure of a mainstream bank and has some high-visibility advisers and investors, among them Peter Wuffli. Will it work?

Real estate investment trusts are the mainstay of Singapore listings, a rare example of liquidity and foreign interest in an otherwise dull local bourse. Two contrasting mergers tell intriguing stories about where the Reit market goes from here.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder as rare deal attracts blue-chip names

OCBC’s Virtual SME Campus has an expensive public face.

Bank of Singapore reports positive first year of operations for Luxembourg subsidiary.

Singapore’s state-owned investment company entered the pandemic in good shape. Covid-19 brought new challenges in which it has emerged as a double-barreled weapon against uncertainty. The fund’s chief investment strategist explains what makes Singapore’s intriguing sovereign wealth vehicle tick.

Australians may draw a different meaning from MAS’s terminology.

Joseph Poon is group head of DBS Private Bank, one of Asia’s leading wealth managers. But the event that drives him today, informing his values and his views on investing and risk management, was stepping aboard a rickety raft in 1976 to flee an impoverished and divided Vietnam.

As expected, DBS and UOB reported dramatic year-on-year declines in profitability, but both were protected by their range.

The sovereign wealth fund is withdrawing to cash, has seen a once-in-a-generation drawdown and is positioning defensively.

The Singaporean investment company made a loss – but an impressive one in the circumstances.

Piyush Gupta, head of Singapore’s DBS Bank, tells Euromoney that scrapping dividends now is a mistake, discusses the mental stress of working from home, and says a multi-year recovery will hit banks hard and lead to mergers and job losses.

Relief for corporates reeling from the coronavirus will be the bank’s top focus for some time, says its global head of transaction banking.

In June, Singapore’s regulator will hand licences to three new wholesale digital banks in a bid to better serve under-banked SMEs. Euromoney talks to Arival Bank, a fintech firm aiming to snag a licence and use it to fuel its global ambitions.

Retail banking has been disrupted. Now comes wholesale’s moment, as banks shift into a higher gear to meet the increasingly onerous demands of digitally connected corporates. Only the best and most adaptable firms are likely to survive.

HSBC launched its green deposit account in the first week of February with a deposit from a building materials company.

DBS evacuated 300 employees from Tower 3 of Singapore’s Marina Bay Finance Centre, after an employee tested positive for coronavirus. It comes as banks across the region re-examine worst-case scenarios as the pathogen spreads.

Across Asia, the coronavirus is hampering banks’ ability to run roadshows, and even hold meetings, and some business continuity plans are starting to kick in.

FX market participants are responding to Singapore’s desire for physical location of matching and pricing engines in the city-state.

Despite tough conditions at home and globally, DBS keeps delivering.

The bank's group head, global transaction banking says: 'We want to open up the transaction banking landscape.'

When renewables private equity group Equis Energy was sold to GIP for $5 billion – $3.7 billion of it equity – investors walked away with well over double their initial investment. The founders of Equis made around $800 million. But why was more than $500 million of the proceeds ringfenced into a vehicle called Equis Renewables, in which the underlying investors did not participate, while the general partners got it all? The story of how those assets got there casts a light on the curious inner workings of modern private equity.

The race is on: not Formula 1 but environmental challenges.

Singapore’s emergence as a global financial hub is no accident, and has not happened overnight. The key, according to Ravi Menon – the managing director of financial regulator the Monetary Authority of Singapore – is to plan well, act decisively and, above all, listen.

Singapore has everything a market hub needs, but has not built on its regulatory environment.

UOB is run by three generations of the Wee family, with a fourth in the wings. It is conservative, cautious and stable. But a bold new digital strategy seeks five million customers across the region. Is it coincidence that change is coming just as the bank’s elder statesman retires at 90?

Citi

Divestments at the Singaporean sovereign wealth vehicle tell a story of a tough investment environment.