DBS Group Holdings Ltd

Annual Report 2023

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DBS Group Holdings Ltd

Annual Report 2023

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POSB
Highlights in 2023

Neighbours first,
bankers second

Since our founding in 1877, we have stayed true to our mission of being the “People’s Bank”. We take pride in serving generations of Singaporeans, from creating a nationwide savings movement, to playing a key role in the development of Singapore, and in recent years, driving digital literacy in the community. Till today,our aim as Singapore’s oldest and most loved bank is to always be at the forefront of providing pioneering financial solutions that cater to the evolving needs of Singaporeans. They include children, young adults, families, seniors and the community at large. We remain committed to giving back to the community and standing alongside Singaporeans, as we widen our reach to more vulnerable segments through various initiatives.

Driving digital and financial literacy in the community

  • We have been bolstering digital inclusion efforts in Singapore through DBS Foundation’s strategic collaboration with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Under the two-year support initiative, we contributed SGD 1 million, which includes the government’s dollar-for-dollar matching, to the Digital for Life movement and stepped up our volunteer participation to jointly launch community programmes and organise workshops to raise digital and financial literacy.

  • Through our People of Purpose movement, our employee volunteers have been running workshops that will reach 100,000 Singaporeans and residents across various community segments, such as youths, persons with disabilities, seniors and hawkers over the next two years.

  • In 2023, we reached out to 59,000 participants via some 400 digital and financial literacy workshops or initiatives.

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For children and families

POSB Smart Buddy programme

  • We made good progress in extending the world’s first integrated in-school savings and payments programme to more schools. The POSB Smart Buddy programme, which was launched in 2017, creates a contactless payments ecosystem within the school environment to help cultivate sensible savings and spending habits among young students in an interactive, engaging manner. These students are then better equipped to achieve financial wellness when they transition to the next stage of their lives.

  • We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to install a digital payment infrastructure in more than 330 primary and secondary schools, junior colleges/ Millennia Institute, and special education (SPED) schools by 2025. Under the partnership, we will also provide up to 400,000 students with smartwatches and cards for payments.

  • Today, some 160,000 students in 170 schools are using Smart Buddy smartwatches and/ or smart cards for digital payments, up from the 70,000 students across 100 schools in 2022. The programme also supports needy students under the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme. To date, the number of students who are receiving meal subsidies via POSB Smart Buddy has nearly tripled to 17,000 students.

  • To spark children’s interest in financial literacy, we partnered visual education specialist Eyeyah! to curate an exhibition using animation and life-sized ATMs to bring to life concepts of saving and thrifting. The exhibition drew more than 770,000 visitors across schools, libraries and public fairs.

  • As part of the bank’s support measures to help ease cost-of-living pressures, we also provided school allowance subsidies of up to SGD 2 a week to 21,000 eligible students in 2023.

POSB PAssion Run for Kids

  • Singapore’s longest-running race of its kind returned in full force in 2023 with over 9,000 participants. Jointly organised by POSB and the People’s Association (PA), the event is the largest charity kids run in Singapore.

  • The event raised a record SGD 1.24 million for the POSB PAssion Kids Fund this year. In all, we have raised close to SGD 13 million, with more than 869,000 children benefitting from 229 programmes.

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For seniors

  • We stepped up our digital literacy programmes for seniors in the community. We extended these programmes to hawker centres and also created a new anti-scam and cybersecurity quiz that was codeveloped with the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and IMDA.

  • In partnership with DBS Foundation and IMDA, we pioneered a new series of edutainment roadshows which incorporated digital literacy workshops with Getai entertainment to better reach out to the seniors and enhance their learning.

  • Besides deepening collaborations with agencies such as IMDA, RSVP SG, the Council for Third Age and PA, we worked with new partners such as TOUCH Community Services to empower more seniors. We were a key partner of IMDA's Digital for Life Festival, which involved more than 30,000 participants and visitors.

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For the students, working adults and migrant workers

  • We partnered community partners, SPED schools and social service agencies to organise regular financial literacy workshops for kids and those with special needs. These sessions included bank branch visits to familiarise participants with banking services.

  • In line with our priority to help customers achieve financial wellness, we also partnered several organisations such as Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) to organise physical and virtual workshops/ seminars where students and working adults, including gig workers, learn how to better save, invest and plan for their retirement. In 2023, more than 28,000 ITE students took part in the financial literacy classes.

  • POSB remains the only bank to work with the Migrant Workers’ Centre and Centre for Domestic Employees to set up banking accounts for more than 900,000 migrant workers and foreign domestic workers. To deepen our engagement with them, we also organised digital literacy workshops for more than 5,000 migrant workers. Today, 75% of migrant workers and foreign domestic workers use the POSB digibank app to conduct their banking transactions.