| Website | http://www.dbs.com/ |
| Headquarters |
12 Marina Boulevard, Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, Level 3
018992
Singapore
|
| CEO/chair |
Piyush Gupta Chief Executive Officer |
| Supervisor | |
| Ownership |
listed on Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX)
DBS' complete shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) is headquartered in Singapore and operates all over Asia. It was established in 1968 and currently has one of the strongest capital positions in the region. It is involved in the following sectors: retail banking, capital markets, foreign exchange and derivatives, money market and securities trading to corporations and financial institutions.
DBS' web page on sustainability can be accessed here.
DBS is linked to a number of companies and projects that BankTrack considers controversial (so called Dodgy Deals), e.g. as a current or past financier or through an expression of interest. The profiles below provide more details on the nature of DBS's link to these deals.
Reclaim Finance tracks the coal, oil and gas policies of financial institutions, including banks, in the Coal Policy Tracker and Oil and Gas Policy Tool. Find further details on their assessment of DBS fossil fuel policy below.
BankTrack assessed DBS in its 2022 Human Rights Benchmark Asia, where it achieved 3 points out of 14 and was ranked as a 'laggard'. More information is detailed in the "Accountability" section of this profile.
DBS’s policies for forest-risk sectors (beef, soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber and timber) have been assessed by the Forests & Finance coalition, achieving an overall score of 5 out of 10 and ranking it as a front runner. DBS achieved a score of 0 out of 10 specifically for its policies related to the beef sector and 6.2 out of 10 for its policies related to the palm oil sector. In addition, BankTrack and the Environmental Paper Network have assessed DBS’s policies related to the pulp and paper sector.
Between 2016 and 2022, DBS provided USD 4,151 in credit to companies operating in these forest-risk sectors and held investments amounting to USD 105 as of 2022. For more information, see the links below.
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its policies. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its beef policy. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its palm oil policy. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
DBS is a member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and has therefore committed to reduce its financed emissions to net zero by 2050; within 18 months of joining the alliance set interim targets for 2030 (or sooner) for high emission priority sectors, and within 36 months set further sector targets; set new intermediary targets every 5 years from 2030 onwards; annually publish data on emissions and progress against a transition strategy including climate-related sectoral policies; and take a robust approach to the role of offsets in transition plans. BankTrack track's implementation of these commitments in the NZBA compliance tracker.
BankTrack is keeping track of the public response of DBS to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. DBS did not publicly condemn the war. DBS is scaling back with its operations in Russia. We consider its exposure to Russia as limited. For further details, see the table linked below.
DBS does not operate a complaints or grievances channel for individuals or communities that might have been affected by the bank's finance.
This page evaluates DBS's responses to instances of alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, raised by civil society organisations. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but covers selected impacts raised by BankTrack and other civil society partners since 2016. For the full scoring methodology, see here. For more information about BankTrack's evaluation of bank responses to human rights impacts, see the 2021 report "Actions speak louder: assessing bank responses to human rights violations".
