DBS Says Western Banks In Asia Need To Respect, Understand Local Players - Report

Tom Burroughes

21 October 2014

Banks headquartered in the West must be mindful of how penetrating Asia’s wealth management market pits them against up and coming domestic rivals, according to , DBS said its high net worth assets under management and assets under management for all wealth customers are now S$88 billion ($68.8 billion) and S$129 billion respectively. The deal, initially announced in March, represented a price equal to around 1.75 per cent of the S$16 billion of assets held by the SocGen Asia private bank as at 31 December 2014.

A hard number on how much of any attrition of SocGen money there has been in the ensuing transfer period to DBS will not be probably disclosed until DBS issues its third-quarter or full-year results. (A European bank executive recently told this publication that an attrition rate of around 30 per cent was considered the average amount in M&A deals.)

Another example of how domestic Asian banks are consolidating and expanding market reach came from the recent agreement on a three-way merger of Malaysian banks. (To see more on that story, click here.)