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Andy Mukherjee

DBS Must Bulk Up or Lose Fintech Turf in Southeast Asia

Big foreign rivals like Citi are winning digital deals as the region’s internet economy is poised to triple

Singapore’s DBS is struggling to expand in wider Southeast Asia as the regional internet economy booms.

Singapore’s DBS is struggling to expand in wider Southeast Asia as the regional internet economy booms.

Photographer: Gerhard Joren/LightRocket/Getty

Southeast Asia’s largest lender happens to be its most tech-savvy. Why then is Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings Ltd. missing out on some of the region’s hottest deals in digital banking?

In recent years, technology has played a large role in the bank’s profitable pivot away from trade financing to corporate cash management. One of its application programming interfaces that hooks up with customers' software – it has some 500 of them – allows merchants on Indonesian e-retailer PT Bukalapak.com to get paid in real time. The same technology allows drivers at ride-hailing company Gojek to get fares credited from their app wallets into bank accounts. 

But though DBS is the most aggressive of Singapore’s three home-grown banks, bigger international rivals are capturing prime deals in its backyard. The No. 1 challenger is Citigroup Inc.