The bank has been proactive amid the Covid-19 crisis, during which it has established several new platforms for growth, said its chief executive.
DBS Bank, which posted a net profit of S$4.72 billion for 2020 – 26 percent below the record performance of 2019 – said its business momentum was sustained in the fourth quarter of 2020, with a healthy fee income and pipeline of loans.
At the same time, the bank's new platforms will strengthen its ability to continue supporting customers and deliver shareholder returns, CEO Piyush Gupta said on Wednesday at a presentation of the bank's fourth quarter and full-year 2020 results.
«I think as we come out of the crisis, given some of the changes and trends we have seen, we are extremely well-positioned to capitalize on going forward,» he said.
India Strategy Accelerates
Gupta said that DBS' acquisition of Lakshmi Vilas Bank in India is a boon to its efforts in the country and its digital strategy there, given the bank's large customer base – some 2 million retail and 125,000 SME clients – as well as brand name and presence, particularly in South India, which has a higher GDP per capital and long-standing connections to Singapore.
«I am quietly confident that this expansion of our "phygital" strategy will allow us to take our digital capability and grow it faster than we have been able to so far,» Gupta said.
China Potential
The bank's securities joint venture in China is also expected to be a big driver of economic activity and growth.
«I think our timing is perfect. The opening up of China's capital markets and both the stock connect and bond connect, and the internationalization of the trade means that that volume of business is growing rapidly,» Gupta said.
He said he believes the opening up of China's capital markets is going to be an even bigger impact story for the next 10 years than China's accession to the WTO in 2002, given that China's participation in capital markets is still tiny compared to its overall GDP and the weight it has on global economic affairs.
New Platforms
About 300 trades are made a day on DBS' Digital Exchange, which was rolled out in December 2020, but the bank has only just started onboarding private banking and private wealth clients. «So far it's looking good, but I think we have the opportunity to scale, given the amount of interest and energy around tokenized assets,» Gupta said.
The chief executive also cited the bank's efforts in catering to supply chain digitalization and its broadening of wealth management to the mass market as drivers of new business.
