Groundswell of talent: How DBS staff grew with the bank

The articles in this series are presented jointly by DBS and content agency The Nutgraf. The Nutgraf team interviewed alumni and employees to uncover these lesser-known stories about the bank, and its key contributions to Singapore.

As the last customers departed, weary shopkeepers stifled yawns as they shuttered their stores for the night.

But before they could head home, they were greeted by smiling DBS branch managers, who had been waiting patiently to deliver some good news: the Housing and Development Board (HDB) had just launched a plan that month – July 1992 – to sell shops to “sitting tenants” at a discounted rate.

Owning their shops would protect these shopkeepers from future rental hikes. And to help them accept HDB’s offer to buy these shops, DBS was on hand to offer the financing they needed.

“HDB tenants were busy during the day, so the branch managers would sit down with them at hawker centres late at night to explain the terms of DBS’ loan facility offer,” recalled Mrs Lam Siok Loon, who was then Vice President of DBS Consumer Banking.

When the DBS veteran looks back on her 28-year career, memories of how DBS staff tirelessly built strong relationships with these mom-and-pop stores stand out.

With access to low-cost financing and more financial knowledge, these sitting tenants would be able to gain a bigger stake in their businesses and further improve their lot.

The DBS staff understood this. So they kept up these late-night chats with shopkeepers for many moons, as HDB sold roughly 12,000 HDB shops over the next decade.

With its roots as a development bank, DBS has always been driven by a sense of purpose and desire to make a positive impact. It was an ethos shared by Mrs Lam, as well as the countless DBS staff who worked from the ground up to grow the bank and meet customers’ needs.

This mission, in turn, defined and advanced these individuals’ careers, as they collectively propelled DBS from a development finance player in the 1970s into a regional powerhouse today.

Here are some stories of growth, grit, and greater good shared by DBS stalwarts who built meaningful careers across diverse functions at the bank.

Gritty leadership

When Mrs Lam applied for a job at the Development Bank of Singapore in 1976, she was attracted by the bank’s rapid growth, especially as it moved to support Singapore’s fledgling enterprises and industries.

Her third and final interview, which was conducted by then-Executive Vice President S Dhanabalan, assured her of ample opportunities to stretch her potential, starting with her posting at the “Lending Platform” division.

What the fresh graduate did not foresee was just how bright the future would be for her career, as DBS took off alongside Singapore’s economic transformation.

The small banking outfit would expand into Singapore’s largest local financial institution, while Mrs Lam would rise up the ranks to head POSB within roughly 25 years.

From helming DBS bank branches to top management roles, Mrs Lam was given many opportunities to prove her chops, be it in product development, credit risk management, or growing the priority banking business.

“I acquired banking operations knowledge on the job,” she said, recalling her early years heading branches in Orchard and Bukit Timah, and new branches in Ang Mo Kio and Parkway Parade.

What Mrs Lam and her teammates initially lacked in experience, they made up for with grit and diligence. Their efforts to establish DBS’ market leadership in HDB shop loans in 1992 was a classic example of how they left no stone unturned to finesse their understanding of new customer segments.

“We started out with no experience in financing HDB estate coffee shops. So our branch managers would go in the mornings, mid-day and evenings to observe,” she recounted. “They would count the number of beverages sold, the number of stalls, rentals and other details, in order to determine the financing capability of the tenants there.”

She added, “It was hard work, but our success in financing HDB shops brought us closer to the small business community.”

It is hard-earned breakthroughs like these that Mrs Lam views as highlights of her DBS career, which concluded on a high note as managing director of a revitalised POSB.

“The experience, expertise, skill set and friendships gained from my years at DBS – that’s what I treasure,” she said.

Tech-driven career progress

Like Mrs Lam, Ms Nora Kang saw DBS through its major milestones from the 1970s. A lifelong “POSB Girl” who has served the bank for over 50 years and counting, Ms Kang has also seen her career progress with the bank’s technology transformation.

In 1972, fresh out of school, she started out as a bank teller with POSB. Her first assignment was at a POSB savings bank counter located in the Maxwell Road Post Office.

There, she initially honed her skills at manual transactions. Deposits and withdrawals, for instance, were done over the counter. “I became very fast and accurate at counting dollars and coins,” she said with a chuckle.

Current and savings account transactions, too, had to be manually posted on ledger cards with carbon copied statements. As other bank veterans like Mrs Lam recalled, “the branch staff had to work past midnight to transfer ledger cards to new cards at the end of each month”.

As early as 1972, POSB made a revolutionary move to adopt online banking terminals, and Ms Kang had a front-row seat to this change.

At a time when the concept of “online” might draw blank stares, POSB frontline staff were already receiving special training to run counters equipped with online accounting systems and machines to print transactions on the new POSB blue passbooks.

“Technology – and the bank – moves fast,” said Ms Kang. “In a couple of years, POSB completed its transition from its old manual ledger card system to a fully computerised online system. It was a welcome change not to handwrite entries on the old brown passbooks.”

She would go on to manage many branches across the city over the next four decades, before moving to a full-time role at the DBS staff union in 2020. Her career would continue to be shaped by technological progress, such as ATMs in the 1980s, POSB cheque printing machines and internet banking in the 1990s; mobile banking in the 2000s; and Video Teller Machines in 2017.

Passion-driven learning

DBS stalwarts like Ms Kwa Mei Lin are the driving force behind DBS’ efforts to stay at the forefront of technology, be it hardware upgrades or its digital transformation to accelerate transaction times and offer customers easy online banking access.

Ms Kwa’s lifelong pursuit of learning has taken her from her first job in DBS’ audit department in 1973 to computerising DBS’ systems in the late 1970s, then to mainframe administration in the 1990s and information security in recent decades. In her last role before she retired in 2020, Ms Kwa was part of the team that safeguarded the bank’s cyber security as Assistant Vice President at DBS’ Technology and Operations department.

Since 2003, she has been a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) member – the most sought-after and illustrious credential in the information security industry held by just 0.002% of the world’s population.

DBS’ strong belief in continuous learning and building a digital workforce has helped her to fulfil her dream of getting a high-level certification – she had to forgo a university education to help her family’s finances back in 1972 and considers the CISSP credential to be her “degree”.

This highly supportive environment for professional development is also what kept her going at DBS for 47 years. “I think I have DBS stamped all over me now,” she quipped.

Room for creativity

Another DBS old-timer who has kept his brain young and his creative spark alive since he joined POSB in 1983 as a Branch Development Officer is Mr Tan Wee Jen.

His canvas was the bank’s branches, where he applied his artistic eye as well as his training in building engineering to design optimal layouts for staff and customers to conduct transactions.

For about four decades, he renovated branches and installed ATMs. Behind that job was a much larger community-centred mission: promoting financial education for Singaporeans.

“As a savings bank, POSB’s mission was to promote thrift and savings among Singaporeans. So they needed to broaden their outreach and make it convenient for people of all ages to save,” said Mr Tan, now a Vice President in the Corporate Real Estate Strategy and Administration Department.

One means of outreach was to expand POSB’s national network of customer-friendly branches and ATMs.

“In the early years, the branches had a big banking hall so ATMs were put in there,” he recalled. “We realised that this arrangement did not maximise the use of ATMs after banking hours, so we punched a hole in the wall to allow customers to access the ATMs from outside the branch after 3pm.”

Over time, branch renovations not only carved out secured space for ATMs but also included private rooms. Here, DBS and POSB relationship managers could advise customers on their investment and insurance needs.

As DBS evolved to provide a full range of retail banking services – including financial planning – for retail customers, its branch layout was adapted to enhance customer experience.

One example of a branch makeover to improve the customer journey was in the 2010s. “We removed the reception counter at the front of the branch to prevent a queue building up; installed ticketing machines for queue numbers; and introduced service pods called ‘quick serve’ for staff to engage customers better,” said Mr Tan.

And as DBS grew into a regional bank, its branches’ colour scheme and décor also changed to express its pan-Asian corporate identity. “Visual impact is important so we used Asian fabric prints, which added colour and softness to the branch design,” he explained.

As one of over 112 employees with more than 40 years of service, Mr Tan credits the bank’s affirming environment for his staying power. “I was able to influence the layout of the branches because of the trust that was given to me.”

Internal job mobility

Compared with Mrs Lam and Mr Tan, Ms Susan Cheong’s 26-year tenure – and counting – may not seem as long. But to her colleagues, she is “like a fixed asset at DBS”, she jokes.

As DBS’ Talent Acquisition and Talent Management head, Ms Cheong’s job is to find and develop the next generation of talent who would grow with the bank. Her journey since 1998, when she applied to DBS at a campus recruitment fair during the Asian Financial Crisis, has given her a deeper appreciation of how DBS attracts top talent from around the region.

For one thing, she has experienced first-hand the latitude DBS offers staff to explore new roles that challenge and stretch their repertoire.

She started as a credit officer at the DBS Thomson branch – an experience she likened to “running a small neighbourhood shop”. There, she forged such close friendships with staff and customers that they still keep in touch nearly three decades later.

Then, in quick succession, she pivoted to different roles and was promoted to others: Treasures Business Director in 2005; Head of Service & Sales Management team in the Consumer Banking Group (CBG SG) in 2008; Operating Officer of CBG SG in 2016; and Head of Distribution and POSB from 2016 to 2019, where she spearheaded projects such as the pop-up ATMs for new dollar notes ahead of Chinese New Year, which created a buzz when it was launched in 2015.

This makes Ms Cheong a walking testament to DBS’ belief in encouraging job mobility. “Staff can apply for new positions after being in a role for two or three years – depending on seniority,” she explained. “In a year, we see 10% of our colleagues moving across roles, which is a very encouraging sign that we are providing strong career development opportunities.”

Deep value

DBS’ talent culture also stands out for the value the bank places on its staff. And this deep respect for employees comes from the top: CEO Piyush Gupta. “Piyush is the leader in people development and he gets personally involved in career conversations of individuals,” said Ms Cheong.

This ethos drives DBS’ approach to talent diversity and inclusiveness. And the bank walks the talk: Not only is it the only company in Southeast Asia to secure a top spot on Bloomberg’s annual Gender-Equality Index (GEI) for six years running, women also make up 40% of its senior management.

DBS actively hires people from all backgrounds: technologists, journalists, athletes – such as an underwater hockey athlete who won a gold medal at the 2019 SEA games – and even a concert pianist.

Ms Cheong hopes the same career empowerment that DBS’ earliest employees experienced as they built the Singapore franchise will inspire the next generation of pan-Asian talent to grow DBS’ regional reach.

“Our mindset focuses on embracing diversity: we have welcomed new teammates from across the region as DBS expanded organically and through acquisitions in Australia, India, Taiwan, and other markets,” she said.

“That’s why fresh graduates now view DBS as a regional bank with broad-based career advancement prospects.”