DBS Bank (D05:SES) -1.80% is launching a crypto trading service for retail customers in 2022. The bank is the largest bank, by assets, in Southeast Asia. Last year it already launched a digital asset trading desk for its institutional clients.
DBS have not revealed any details, but the bank’s CEO Piyush Gupta, who has headed the bank since 2009, disclosed there is a roadmap for the expansion into the crypto space, during DBS Bank’s quarter earnings call on Monday. He stated:
“We’ve started doing the work on seeing how we get in a sensible way, take it out, and expand it beyond the current investor base. And that includes making sure we appropriate thinking about things like potential fraud and others” (Business Insider, 2022).
Gupta’s goal is to “make the access to the digital assets a lot more convenient” (Business Insider, 2022) for consumers. For this to happen, he expects DBS Bank to improve its current digital asset trading platform.
The first step of Gupta’s plan is to push all activities online. Currently, the bank’s workflow requires clients to call in order to place orders. Within a 24-hour market, Gupta knows it is key to simplify this process.
“What happens is that you’ve got 24/7 but the customers still need to call and speak to bankers [.] So the first order is to make it all online, make it self-service, make it instant, and make sure the internal processes are robust to be able to support that.” (Business Insider, 2022).
DBS Bank has been growing their presence in the crypto space, establishing a crypto exchange division backed by SGX, Singapore’s largest derivatives and asset exchange, in December of 2020.
The division, called DBS Digital Exchange was reported to have raked in a full-year trading volume of around $819 million in 2021, according to CoinDesk.
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*Stock percentages taken on 15.02.2022 at 10:06
*Lee, Isabelle (14. February 2022). Business Insider The largest bank in Southeast Asia is launching a crypto trading service for retail customers this year. Last viewed on 15.02.2022 on https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dbs-crypto-trading-service-retail-customers-southeast-asia-largest-bank-2022-2.
