Who Owns DBS Bank?

DBS was established by the Singapore government in 1968 as the Development Bank of Singapore, three years after independence. Its founding mandate was industrial financing: lending to the manufacturing projects that the young nation's economic planners prioritized over the colonial-era trade and commodity banking dominated by British and overseas banks.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the bank expanded into commercial banking, launching Singapore's first automated teller machine network in 1979 and acquiring POSB, the Post Office Savings Bank, in 1998. The POSB deal brought millions of small depositors and a dominant share of Singapore's savings accounts. The bank officially adopted the name DBS Bank in 2003, dropping the reference to development banking as it repositioned as a regional commercial institution.

Regional expansion accelerated under CEOs Jackson Tai and then Piyush Gupta, who led the bank from 2009 to 2025. Under Gupta, DBS invested heavily in digital infrastructure, built the digibank mobile platform, and acquired ING's Asian private banking business in 2009. In 2017 it bought ANZ's retail and wealth businesses in five Asian markets for about SGD 110 million plus book value. The 2020 merger with India's distressed Lakshmi Vilas Bank gave DBS a much larger branch network in India, and the 2023 acquisition of Citigroup's Taiwan consumer banking business added roughly 2.7 million customers and made DBS the largest foreign bank in Taiwan.

Tan Su Shan, a 35-year DBS veteran who previously ran institutional banking and wealth management, became Group CEO in March 2025. Her first full year saw DBS post record results for 2025 despite lower interest rates. In 2026 the bank continued expanding in wealth management and transaction banking while guiding investors to income roughly flat with 2025 levels.