DBS Group, Singapore’s largest bank, has set its sights on a major milestone — growing its wealth management assets to more than S$1 trillion, or approximately $774 billion, by the year 2030, according to the head of the bank’s wealth unit.
The goal covers both the bank’s retail and wealth divisions and would represent an increase of roughly S$400 billion from the S$632 billion in wealth assets the bank held at the close of 2025.
Shee Tse Koon, DBS’s group executive and group head of consumer banking and wealth management, explained the ambition at a media briefing. “From full year 2015 to 2025, in 10 years, we grew our AUM by S$400 billion. Looking at the traction, our ambition now is to grow the same S$400 billion by half the time,” he said.
He also pointed to broader economic forces working in the bank’s favor. “Many of the macro trends that we see, for example the rise of wealth in Asia, and also the shift of wealth into Asia, I think these macro trends are what will be tailwinds,” Shee added.
Banks around the world have been expanding their wealth services throughout Asia, eager to tap into the region’s rapidly growing population of affluent clients. Singapore has emerged as a major destination for that wealth, drawing steady inflows thanks to its reputation as a safe and stable financial center amid global uncertainty — a trend that has benefited the city-state’s three largest banks.
As of May, DBS reported a 20% year-over-year increase in newly enrolled high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients. The bank currently serves more than a third of all single-family offices established in Singapore.
To keep pace with that growth, DBS plans to bring on more than 600 relationship managers, frontline advisers, and platform engineers before the end of 2028. The hiring push will focus primarily on the bank’s key markets: Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
“It’s not just about the frontliners. We need the engineers, the tech people, the platform people to create that capability and the capacity,” Shee said. He also emphasized the bank’s broad approach to serving clients across different financial levels, saying, “Our wealth continuum is about really winning in every segment… it’s about serving them most appropriately in that segment, because as I said, customers are not homogeneous.”
Last month, DBS announced plans to open 18 new wealth centers across Asia by the end of 2027 and upgrade 36 existing locations over the following 18 months — the most extensive physical expansion the bank’s wealth division has ever undertaken.
(Note: $1 = 1.2924 Singapore dollars)
