DBS Bank India, which is predominantly focussed on corporate and institutional lending, plans to scale up retail and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) lending significantly over the next five years.

“DBS Bank India is still largely an institutional bank with 60-70 per cent of our overall revenues coming from corporates, especially large ones. Over the next five years, we expect the balance to become 40 per cent of corporate and 60 per cent consumer banking and SMEs,” Bharath Mani, Executive Director & Head - National Distribution, DBS Bank, told BusinessLine.

DBS Bank India Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-headquartered DBS Bank Ltd. In FY22, its total loan book stood at ₹43,898 crore, of which exposure to large corporates was about 60 per cent while the balance was equally divided between SME and retail. 

The bank is working on its products, geography focus, pricing and customer segmentation to reverse the existing lending mix. 

Mani said that the incremental revenue for the next two years would continue to be bolstered by the corporate segment. “But, in the next 24-36 months, revenues from the consumer and SME will start lifting their weights,” he added.

In November 2020, the Reserve Bank of India allowed the amalgamation of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with DBS Bank India Limited. The amalgamation provided DBS Bank India with a strong foothold in south India, and took the total network to around 600 branches across 19 states. It also provided DBS Bank India with a huge retail customer base with a strong current & savings account (CASA) balance besides a wide range of products such as gold loans, commercial vehicle financing and education loans 

Gold loan

“Gold loan was completely alien to us but that’s an area where we did a very good job in terms of understanding the product and its dynamics. Currently, the gold loan book is about ₹4,500 crore and we want to grow this by three times in the next five years,” Mani said. 

He also added that while MSME lending will continue to be one of the key pillars of growth, the format of lending will see a complete overhaul with increased use of analytics and technology. 

Bucketing the amalgamation process under four pillars — Product and process, Systems and technology, People, and Brand—Mani said, “We are progressing well towards our desired vision at a good pace on all four pillars despite the pandemic-related challenges.” 

On branding, he said, once the final stage of branding is over, customers walking into any of the branches across the country will get the same level of service, proposition and product. “By the end of this year, we will be close to 90 per cent of where we want to be and once it is done it will be continuous improvement as we move on,” Mani added. 

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