Singapore’s regulatory authority imposes substantial additional capital requirements for the city-state's largest bank after a series of digital outages.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will require DBS Bank to set aside far more capital, following three breakdowns in its digital banking system in the past 18 months. The total additional regulatory capital is around S$ 1.6 billion ($1.2 billion), according to a MAS statement released Monday.
The additional capital requirement will now be calculated by a 1.8-time multiplier on risk-weighted assets set aside for operational risks. This is also not the first time that the MAS is taking action related to DBS's ostensible digital weaknesses. In February 2022, MAS upped the multiplier to 1.5 due to an incident in November 2021.
Falling Short
The requirement imposed at this time underscores the seriousness with which MAS treats this matter, Ho Hern Shin, deputy managing director for financial supervision at MAS said.
«DBS Bank has fallen short of MAS’ expectations for banks to deliver reliable services to their customers, while the repeated inconvenience caused to the public is unacceptable,» she added.
