Singapore lender DBS aims to double Australian lending book in 5 years
SYDNEY, June 18 (Reuters) - DBS Group (DBSM.SI), opens new tab aims to double its Australian lending book in the next five years, its CEO Tan Su Shan said, as the Singapore-headquartered bank seeks to take advantage of trade links between Australia and Southeast Asia.
The bank said on Wednesday it had signed a pact with trade agency Austrade which will help it facilitate and finance more trade and investment between Australian and Southeast Asian businesses, especially from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Tan said that DBS's Australian lending book was currently worth about A$11 billion ($7.16 billion) which, she said, could double to A$20 billion in the next five years.
"Australian companies have been more domestic-centric. We are trying to change that narrative," Tan said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Referring to its Australian client AirTrunk, a data centre operator that was bought by a Blackstone-led consortium for A$24 billion last year, Tan said the company was one of the first few to invest in data centers outside of Australia.
"We'd love to rinse and repeat that with the other big Australian companies," she said.
DBS posted in May better-than-expected quarterly results, boosted by wealth management fees that jumped 35% on-year to a record quarterly high of S$724 million ($563.73 million), which the bank attributed to strong market sentiment.
Assets under management at the bank, Southeast Asia's biggest, climbed 13% to a record high of S$432 billion in the first quarter.
Tan said while the dollar and U.S. Treasury's safe-haven status was not yet being threatened, some of the bank's clients had started to diversify away from dollar-linked investments, which has benefited Japan, among others.
"You've seen also a lot more interest in the euro and the yen. The yen has strengthened as well. So we see people now looking at where do I invest in yen?," she said.
($1 = 1.2843 Singapore dollars)
($1 = 1.5366 Australian dollars)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
9 minutes ago
- Reuters
Venezuela's Machado calls for more US action against Maduro
June 18 (Reuters) - Washington needs to take further action against Venezuelan leader President Nicolas Maduro, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said, including enforcing sanctions and fighting criminal networks she says are connected to the government. Machado was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election but is the country's most popular opposition figure. Western countries and the opposition say Machado roundly won last year's election, while Maduro's government says he was re-elected but has not released detailed vote tallies. "Would we like more action more quickly? Yes, yes," Machado, who has been in hiding for nearly a year, told Reuters in a Zoom interview late on Tuesday. "For the United States, Venezuela is a hemispheric security issue." The 57-year-old industrial engineer, who urged her supporters to boycott recent legislative elections, said Maduro is the head of a "criminal enterprise." "We're asking for law enforcement," said Machado about her position on what the United States, Canada, and Europe, among others, should do. "We need the international justice system to function because the justice system in Venezuela doesn't exist." Machado said the opposition also urged the U.S. government and others in Europe to release information about the criminal networks allegedly connected to Maduro. The United States has sanctioned several individuals in Maduro's government, levied drug trafficking indictments against many high-ranking members of Venezuela's government and military and Maduro himself, among other actions. The U.S. revocation of Chevron's license to operate in Venezuela was a financial blow to Maduro, and Machado said cutting off financing was crucial to creating internal pressure against him. Under the new authorization, Chevron can no longer operate in Venezuelan oil fields, export oil, or expand activities. Maduro and his allies have always rejected sanctions, referring to them as "economic war" and hailing what they say is the success of the economy in spite of the measures. Venezuela's government has increased taxes on the private sector since the Chevron license change to compensate for lost revenue, business leaders and analysts told Reuters this month.
The Guardian
9 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Jim Chalmers is dreaming of big economic reform. But is history – or even Albanese – on his side?
Are Australians ready to have a mature conversation about the difficult reforms needed to underpin our future prosperity? Jim Chalmers reckons we are. The treasurer says there is a hunger in Australia for bold and ambitious reform and the only thing standing between us and policy nirvana is a national consensus to get it done. Labor has a 'responsibility' to future generations to put in place the settings to drive the next era of prosperity, Chalmers says. And the government is ready to go well beyond what they took to voters in May. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'We're trying to say we have a big, ambitious agenda, and we're going to roll that out as we said we would. But we're going to test the country's appetite for more than that,' he told the National Press Club on Tuesday. Reform succeeds when you can bring people with you, Chalmers said. 'It requires courage but it requires consensus as well.' Courage and consensus – two things sorely lacking in political life for … decades? Chalmers entreats attendees at the upcoming three-day reform roundtable in August to leave their narrow interests at the door and consider the national interest instead. It will be a big ask. Chalmers is right to call out those who make loud demands for reform but shoot down every single step in that direction. 'Too often, the loudest calls for economic reform in the abstract come from the noisiest opponents of actual reform in the specific,' he said on Tuesday. Look no further than the confected outrage in some media outlets of the $3m super tax. Chalmers is also trying to dictate how journalists interrogate the government. He claims the 'rule-in rule-out game' that the media play is 'cancerous' to reform. If you force the government to 'rule out' changes to the GST, for example, then that instantly rules out some major options for holistic tax reform that could leave most Australians better off. Chalmers is not wrong but he is asking for trust – and that needs to go both ways. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Labor has shown it prefers to keep the fourth estate at arm's length, treating journalists as a problem to be managed and, where possible, manipulated. Good luck being allowed to talk to somebody in the bureaucracy to help you better understand an issue, or get some time to talk with a policy adviser. That might be inside baseball but there's a more obvious question mark hanging over Chalmers' vision. Is there really the claimed appetite for political risk around the cabinet table, starting with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese? Meaningful reform involves winners and losers, as Chalmers repeatedly noted. But a glance at any budgets over recent years suggests policies are carefully designed not to create any losers, unless they are small groups such as wealthy Aussies or multinational firms. Finally, Chalmers was cagey about whether members of the opposition would be invited to take part in August's talkfest. Which begs a perhaps even more fundamental question: can major economic reform, particularly in heavily contested areas such as tax, happen without bipartisan support? History suggests not. Patrick Commins is economics editor for Guardian Australia
Reuters
16 minutes ago
- Reuters
West Africa wants deals with Trump but US entry bans a barrier, Nigerian minister says
ABUJA, June 18 (Reuters) - West African nations want to strike deals with the U.S. over energy and rare earth minerals, but the Trump administration's looming expansion of travel bans risks derailing those efforts, Nigeria's foreign minister said on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump this month implemented full or partial travel bans for foreign nationals from a dozen countries as part of his immigration crackdown. A possible broadening of the restrictions to an additional 36 countries would include nearly all of West Africa. "This would be most unfortunate if it comes to pass, because we are a region of opportunities ready to do deals," said Nigeria's Yussuf Tuggar, who currently chairs regional bloc ECOWAS's council of foreign ministers. President Trump has upended longstanding trade relations since returning to the White House, using erratic tariff threats and aggressive tactics in a bid to secure better deals from trading partners. As part of an agreement with Beijing, for example, Trump said China will supply the U.S. with magnets and rare earth minerals critical to the auto and battery industries in exchange for Chinese students' continued access to U.S. universities. "We possess critical minerals and even rare earths," Tuggar told West African government ministers, citing the example of samarium - used for military-grade magnets and nuclear reactor control rods - found in his home state in Nigeria. "We would like to do deals with the U.S., but visa restrictions are non-tariff barriers to deals," he said. He also touted the oil and gas-rich region as an energy partner. "We are also a strategic alternative to more distant and politically divergent energy producers. So, we will do deals for our prosperity. The only question is with whom," he said. The U.S. has cited reasons for the bans including governments' failure to produce reliable identity documents, corruption, and high volumes of visa overstays by certain countries' citizens.
