DBS Bank’s acquisition of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd’s (ANZ) retail and wealth management businesses in Asia will allow the Singapore-based bank to facilitate its digital banking transformation and double its customer base in Taiwan, top DBS executives said in Taipei yesterday.
“The digital revolution has changed the way our customers live, work, play and bank,” DBS chief executive officer Piyush Gupta said at a news conference.
The largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets has invested S$5 billion (US$3.59 billion) over the past six years in technology, and half the amount has been used to update its digital banking system, meaning it now has one of the most comprehensive systems in the world, Gupta said.
Last year, 16 percent of wealth management and 51 percent of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients in Singapore opened accounts digitally and 90 percent of remittances were conducted over the Internet, meriting the digital transformation, Gupta said.
DBS would spare no effort in reimagining banking as one of its key agendas, he said.
The Singaporean lender last week inked an agreement to acquire ANZ’s retail and wealth management business in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Singapore for S$110 million.
The deal would add S$23 billion of wealth assets to DBS’ books, taking the total under its management to S$182 billion.
The acquisition would add about 530,000 customers to DBS Taiwan, enlarging its base by 2.5 times.
“I am excited about the coming transaction that would allow us to broaden our product offerings,” DBS Bank Taiwan general manager Jerry Chen (陳亮丞) said.
DBS is to add more than 800 employees from ANZ Taiwan, which has 1,100 employees.
The two sides should work out details over the next three months, ANZ regional chief executive Farhan Faruqui said on Monday.
The integration is to take place in the third or fourth quarter of next year, with DBS planning to file applications with the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) next month, Chen said.
The bank has seen strong growth momentum in Taiwan with deposits and loans expanding 22 percent and 17 percent respectively from 2009 to last year, Chen said.
Of the foreign banks operating in Taiwan, it has the largest SME-lending operation, with NT$21.68 billion (US$688.1 million) on the books as of August, Chen said.
DBS is also interested in consumer banking and the ANZ deal would help further its wealth management business and accelerate the scale-up of its digital banking agenda, Chen said.
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