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Singapore\u2019s biggest bank plans to grow its cryptocurrency and digital assets business despite the crypto bear market, saying it wants to expand its digital exchange and offer services to more of its 300,000 wealthy clients in Asia.<\/p>\n
Piyush Gupta, chief executive of DBS<\/a> since 2009, said the crypto market downturn proved that established and regulated financial institutions, rather than just start-ups, should be offering products such as digital asset trading for retail investors.<\/p>\n The bank\u2019s brokerage arm last year received a cryptocurrency<\/a> licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, allowing its institutional and wealthy clients access to its DBS Digital Exchange by invitation. <\/p>\n Gupta said the bank has less than 1,000 members on the exchange but would soon offer the service to 300,000 of its wealthy clients across Asia including private banks, accredited investors, other exchanges and funds through its DBS mobile banking app. <\/p>\n The app would make the process less clunky and quicker for clients in addition to allowing DBS to offer it to more customers, he said. DBS had total assets of S$686bn (US$488bn) as of December 2021.<\/p>\n The former Citibank executive, who has served in senior banking roles across Asia, said DBS had to support Singapore<\/a>\u2019s push into cutting-edge financial technology. \u201cPeople look to us to be a pioneer in the space and to continue to push boundaries,\u201d he said in an interview with the Financial Times.<\/p>\n