DBS Digital Assets Business Building Steadily

Overall the bank said that earnings for the first quarter rose by 72% to SGD 2.01 billion from SGD 1.17 billion a year ago.

article-image

DBS Bank; Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • DBS said during its earnings that digital transformation is a key theme for post pandemic growth for the bank
  • Volume is comparatively low because its institutionally focused and the bank is “careful” about who it brings on

Singapore-based DBS Bank, one of Southeast Asia’s largest by market cap, gave some insights into its digital asset trading desk that it launched late last year during its earnings call on Friday.

The bank said that its trading desk, which is open only to professional investors and wealth managers in Singapore, has daily trading volume between 30-40 million SGD ($23-$30 million) with 120 investors onboarded.

In addition to offering cryptocurrency trading for bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and XRP in multiple regional currency pairs, the desk also offers digitized stocks and bonds. During the call Piyush Gupta, DBS’ CEO, said that while the numbers might seem small compared to Coinbase or some regional exchanges they are two different products. 

“This is not a retail product, we are only open to professional investors and wealth managers,” Gupta said. “We’re being careful about who we bring on.”

DBS also said that it was working on extending the trading desk hours of the desk from Singapore business hours to 24-7. The bank wouldn’t provide exact figures about growth forecasts, but Guptra said that business is rising “steadily”. 

A DBS spokesperson confirmed to Blockworks that the majority of clients are currently in Singapore, but there are EU based clients waiting to be onboarded. The most popular trading pairs are BTC-USD and ETH-USD, the spokesperson confirmed.

DBS doubling-down on digital transformation

While DBS’ earnings showed a relatively strong recovery for the bank as Singapore climbs out of the depths of the Covid-19 recession, Gupta emphasized that the bank was doubling-down on digital transformation as a way to accelerate its growth. 

One initiative its undertaking is a platform called Partior, which it announced earlier today before the earnings. Developed in conjunction with JPMorgan and Temasek, Patriot — Latin for share — digitized M1 commercial bank money with an aim to provide nearly instant around-the-clock cross-border payments. In contrast, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which also provide similar functionality are a digitally-issued version of M0 money, or cash, instead of digitizing existing money. 

“The current hub and spoke arrangement in global payments often results in delays as confirmations from various intermediaries are needed before a settlement is treated as final. This in turn has a knock-on effect and creates inefficiencies in the final settlement of other assets,” Gupta said in a statement. “By harnessing the benefits of blockchain and smart contracts technology, the Partior platform will address current points of friction.”

The bank plans to launch this platform in the third quarter of the year, and will initially target the Singapore dollar-USD currency pair before expanding.

Firing on all cylinders

Overall the bank said that earnings for the first quarter rose by 72% to SGD 2.01 billion from SGD 1.17 billion a year ago. Covid-19 hit Singapore, a trading hub heavily reliant on the free flow of people and product, hard as government statistics showed its economy by 5.4% during 2020. Its economy is expected to grow by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2021, but will eventually recover to 6% for the whole year according to forecasts. 

“This has been an extraordinary quarter for our business as we fired on all cylinders. Loan and deposit growth was robust, fees were strong and treasury had a record performance. At the same time, we remained disciplined on costs while asset quality was resilient,” Gupta said during the call. 

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (1).jpg

Research

With $13B in tokenized assets, strong institutional partnerships, and a clear first-mover advantage in the RWA space. The platform's methodical approach to regulatory compliance, coupled with its hybrid public-private architecture, positions it uniquely to capture significant market share in the emerging tokenization landscape. While current fee generation primarily stems from metadata transactions, the planned launch of Figure Markets, major exchange listings, and comprehensive market-making initiatives in 2025 could serve as powerful catalysts for growth.

article-image

Perena is built on the premise that as stablecoins proliferate, liquidity could fragment, and stablecoins aren’t useful if they aren’t liquid

article-image

From hackathons to trading tools and DAO governance, AI agents are redefining how we build and innovate

article-image

CME’s large bitcoin contracts are so big that investors are turning to micro bitcoin contracts

article-image

The third-largest stablecoin is going multichain for the first time in its seven-year history

article-image

Nano Labs’ news release notes confidence in bitcoin being “a reliable store of value amidst its rising global adoption”

article-image

Several big companies report third quarter earnings this week, likely moving markets