The group announced results that included the impact of its completed acquisition of retail banking in Taiwan from Citigroup.

Singapore-listed DBS Group yesterday said its third quarter net profit rose 18 per cent year-on-year to S$2.63 billion ($1.95 billion). Total income rose 16 per cent to a record S$5.19 billion, buoyed by a higher net interest margin and rising commercial book non-interest income.

The non-performing loan ratio was little changed from the previous quarter at 1.2 per cent with specific allowances at 18 basis points of loans. 

The bank said wealth management fees increased 22 per cent to S$393 million from higher bancassurance and investment product sales.

“We achieved record income in the third quarter as net interest margin continued to expand and growth in commercial book non-interest income was sustained,” DBS chief executive, Piyush Gupta said.

Gupta referred to recent technology problems at the bank and the steps it is taking to resolve them.

“We will also dedicate ourselves to executing the comprehensive set of measures we recently announced to address the series of digital disruptions, for which we are truly sorry. We are committed to strengthening our technology resilience and ensuring customer service reliability,” Gupta said. 

Citigroup’s Taiwan business integration
In August DBS completed its acquisition of Citigroup’s consumer banking business in Taiwan. The transaction – part of Citigroup’s spin-off of more than a dozen retail banking groups worldwide – made DBS the largest foreign bank in Taiwan by assets. 

DBS said in its results that the purchase of the Taiwan business added S$10 billion to loans and S$12 billion to deposits. It also boosted DBS Taiwan’s credit card accounts by fivefold to over three million and tripled investment assets under management to over S$12 billion. DBS said provisional goodwill of S$936 million was recorded while one-time integration costs of S$40 million were accrued in the third quarter.

Liquidity, capital buffer
DBS said liquidity remained ample with liquidity coverage ratio of 138 per cent and the net stable funding ratio of 117 per cent, both above regulatory requirements of 100 per cent.

The Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard international measure of a bank’s capital buffer – of 14.1 per cent was unchanged from the previous quarter as profit accretion and a decline in risk-weighted assets were offset by the impact of Citi Taiwan integration.