2023 overview

Despite the rapidly evolving macroeconomic environment, Consumer Banking/ Wealth Management delivered strong results and maintained a healthy balance sheet. We benefitted from the tailwinds that came through higher interest rates, although growth was partially offset by softening demand for loans. Business momentum was sustained by net new money flows into the region, and higher fee income generated through increased productivity and greater use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ ML). We concluded the integration of Citigroup Inc.’s consumer banking business in Taiwan (Citi Consumer Taiwan), making DBS the biggest foreign bank by assets in Taiwan. We will continue to build out our business footprint, providing more value for our customers by helping them to navigate any financial uncertainty and grow their wealth.

Strong broad-based interest and fee income growth

We delivered record earnings, propelled by broad-based interest and fee income growth. Our total income rose 35% to SGD 8.96 billion, due to substantial net interest income margin expansion and growth in wealth management fees. All six core markets delivered high double-digit income growth. With an improved cost-income ratio, net profit before tax grew 59% to SGD 4.28 billion.

Net interest income rose 45% to SGD 6.2 billion, driven by higher Fed rates and stronger deposit earnings in most of our markets. The growth was however moderated by margin compression in our asset portfolio. Overall, we still saw resilient growth in balances.

Non-interest income grew to SGD 2.76 billion due to higher investments and bancassurance product sales, cards and unsecured loan-related fees. Card fees rose 22% to SGD 1.04 billion, as travel spending surpassed pre-pandemic levels in all markets.

Despite intensifying competition, we upheld our market share lead in savings deposits, cards and the mortgage loan space in Singapore. The bancassurance business maintained its lead in Singapore for new business market share and we also became the market leader in digital bancassurance offerings.

Wealth Management: Sustained growth buoyed by rising wealth fees and robust family office practice

Our wealth franchise continued to build on last year’s record outperformance, with total wealth management income climbing 35% to SGD 4.43 billion.

We benefitted from an accelerated shift of asset management, family offices and capital flows towards Asia, capturing SGD 24 billion of net new money inflows from North Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Assets under management (AUM) grew 23% to SGD 365 billion.

We gained market share in our Family Office business – DBS Private Bank onboarded more than a third of the 1,100 Single Family Offices set up in Singapore. As the first private bank in the world to launch a Multi Family Office proposition leveraging Singapore’s Variable Capital Company (VCC) regime, we have attracted keen interest from ultra-high-net-worth clients looking to consolidate their wealth in Singapore. Our Family Office AUM continued its growth trajectory and grew 21% in 2023.

Our clients have also gone beyond conventional norms of passive charitable giving towards impact investing, partnering the DBS Foundation to provide support to businesses for impact in the region. In March 2023, we announced the first close of the Asia Impact First Fund, which we launched together with Heritas Capital to help innovative and high-growth social enterprises across Asia to scale and create greater social and environmental impact. We committed 50% of the over USD 20 million that was raised.

We continued to help more clients do well by doing good, further raising the bar on ESG investing. Currently, more than 50% of our clients’ investment assets are made up of “sustainable investments” (MSCI BBB-rating). We enabled this by driving client advocacy, proactively conducting portfolio reviews, and making it easier for our clients to understand the ESG ratings of their portfolios.

Testament to the strides we have made, our wealth management business continued to be recognised globally. We were named “Asia’s Best Bank for Wealth Management” by Euromoney for the second year running and clinched “Best Private Bank in Asia Pacific” from Global Finance for the fifth year running. One of the first-time wins included “Best Private Bank – Asia” from The Asset.

Consumer Banking: Driving financial inclusivity through ‘phygital’ engagement and ecosystem partnerships

One of our key differentiators is our phygital approach, which combines our digital capabilities with the expertise of frontline branch staff and wealth managers to serve the needs of clients and customers worldwide.

Data analytics and AI/ ML have been critical enablers to deepening customer engagement. By leveraging our AI/ ML models, we have continually engaged 8.6 million customers across the region via personalised nudges, guiding them towards better investment and financial planning decisions.

Our customers in Singapore have improved their financial health with our AI-powered digital financial planning tool, which combines content with customised advisory nudges and recommended solutions that suit a customer’s risk profile.

To date, more than three million customers have engaged with the nudges. They saved 83% more, invested 4.3 times more, and were 2.3 times more insured than nonusers. Our wealth managers, who also received the nudges, enhanced their client relationships and drove more clients to take up legacy solutions in 2023.

DBS PayLah! usage continued to grow with more than 36 million logins a month, where users book tickets and rides, pay bills, and scan and pay at more than 180,000 points in Singapore. In 2023, we nearly tripled the volume of scan-to-pay transactions to be the top digital transactions platform in hawker centres.

Beyond Singapore, we strengthened our overseas presence by scaling our ecosystem partnerships in Indonesia, China, and India. We expanded our consumer finance business by working with 11 ecosystem partners such as Kredivo, JD.com and Cred to offer lending solutions to their customers. The volume of loans disbursed across these markets grew 118% to SGD 3.4 billion. Customers acquired via ecosystems in 2023 more than doubled from a year ago.

After the amalgamation of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) into DBS Bank India, we deepened customer relationships through personal loans, gold loans, MSME business loans and insurance. Through our distribution channels and partnerships, our gold loans book grew 56%.

Solidifying our footprint in North Asia, we completed the integration of Citi’s consumer banking business in Taiwan in August 2023. Since then, business momentum has been strong. Within three months after the integration, more than one million Citi customers signed up for DBS digibank and Card+ apps.

Putting customers at the heart of everything we do

We further accelerated our transformation to a data-driven, agile organisation that puts our customers at the heart of everything we do. This new way of working, what we call Managing through Journeys (MtJs), galvanises staff to leverage our data and digital capabilities to deliver new offerings more quickly. Across our markets, we operationalised MtJs performance cells in key consumer products such as cards, consumer finance, deposits, mortgages, and customer segments.

Today, 98% of consumer banking revenue is generated by MtJs squads comprising more than 2,000 technologists, wealth managers and business teams. We scaled unsecured loans in India by leveraging preapproved credit models and drove customer engagement through bespoke wealth content in Singapore and Taiwan.

We have for many years been building and seeking to deliver best-in-class experiences to our customers. But we recognise that we can always do better to continue earning the privilege to be our customers’ primary financial partner. We will continue to innovate and enhance our services to serve our customers’ banking, payment, investing and financial planning needs across our digital and physical touchpoints, anytime and from anywhere.

Standing by our customers and the community

Amid the rising cost of living and an uncertain macro-outlook, we want to do what we can to stand by our customers, especially those facing acute financial stress, and help them tide over tough times.

That is why DBS/ POSB committed SGD 40 million in 2023 to intensify efforts to help Singaporeans and residents ease cost-of-living pressures. The support measures helped to defray everyday expenses, reduce mortgage payments and bolster savings. We recently extended our weekly hawker meal subsidy initiative for another six months, subsidising a total of 7.5 million hawker meals over 18 months from February 2023 to July 2024.

These efforts have been in addition to the bank’s commitment of up to SGD 1 billion over the next 10 years to step up support for vulnerable communities and catalyse social impact.

To protect our customers from falling prey to fraud, we also rolled out new security measures that can thwart malware threats and enable customers to lock up their accounts. Education also plays a big role. Our employees and ecosystem partners such as the Singapore Police Force worked together via digital literacy workshops and content to teach customers how to prevent fraud.

What we look forward to

Generating meaningful and enduring impact is a key business imperative. The success of our franchise is tied to how best we can tap our technology, assets and people to create innovative solutions and opportunities for all, including those with the fewest resources, to help them achieve their aspirations. We seek to better support our customers so we can confidently navigate the uncertainties ahead together and drive more inclusive growth.