SINGAPORE (Mar 4): DBS Bank on Monday launched its locally incorporated wholly owned subsidiary, DBS Bank India Limited (DBIL).
This marks a key milestone for the bank, which has been present in India for 25 years. DBS set up a representative office in India in 1994 and opened its first bank branch in 1995.
It currently operates in 12 cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Nashik, Surat, Kolhapur, Salem, Cuddalore and Moradabad.
With DBIL, DBS hopes to accelerate its growth plans, expand its operations and build greater scale in India through a “phygital” model to further serve large corporates, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and individual customers.
DBIL plans to establish over 100 customer touchpoints – a combination of branches and kiosks – across 25 cities in the next 12-18 months.
This month, DBIL will open nine new branches and extend its reach to Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore and Ludhiana.
In addition, it will expand within cities where it is already present in, opening branches in Andheri in Mumbai, as well as Gurugram and Noida in the National Capital Region. It will also open five branches in unbanked rural centres.
To further advance its digitalisation and innovation thrust, the bank established its largest technology and operations hub outside Singapore, DBS Asia Hub 2 in Hyderabad, in 2016.
Piyush Gupta, Group CEO of DBS, says, “As an Asian bank, it is imperative that we take a long-term view of the region. We believe it is important to continue investing in Asia’s two biggest markets – China and India. In 2016, we launched digibank, a groundbreaking mobile-only offering, in India. We recently started piloting data-driven lending solutions for small and medium enterprises. The creation of a full-fledged subsidiary in India allows us to scale up further and bring to customers a more compelling proposition.”
