The regulator MAS is already starting to make a noise about "appropriate actions" [1] once the dust has settled. It's also a matter of national pride, DBS is v

The regulator MAS is already starting to make a noise about "appropriate actions" [1] once the dust has settled. It's also a matter of national pride, DBS is very iconic and there's been a lot of publicity about the bank as a regional success story, specially as they were publicising their "successful" transition to become a tech company going head to head with global giants, while also offering banking services [2]. I hope they don't forget their roots and end up treating banking as an afterthought and failures of this magnitude as par for the course. A sizeable portion of the population still goes into the bank to transact physically. There's the historical angle and another point of national pride [3]. Since the post office savings bank (now part of DBS) was established by the British in 1877 it catered to low income groups, and provided a very high quality of service while keeping operating costs low. They were also early regional adopters of technology, starting to computerise their accounts in 1972. For a long time POSB was run as a statutory board with directors that were directly appointed by a government ministry. All this is to say that people have a slightly different relationship with POSB/DBS compared to other banks. There's a lot of trust that's been carefully cultivated over decades. People believe and trust in this bank, they trust that the bank has their best interests at heart, and this has been generally true. Failures of this magnitude will start to break this trust. That in itself is not a big concern, there are other banks and we can jump ship. There's a social angle with POSB/DBS, specially with the older generations. When POSB was handed to DBS [4] on a silver platter in 1998 a lot of people voiced concerns that the bank would become yet another money-grubbing profit-seeking megacorp, and about how this would affect their earlier objective of serving the weaker strata of society. It's hard to predict what may happen if this trust starts to break. References: [1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/dbs-bank-service-disruption-mas-appropriate-supervisory-actions-2335931 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/dbs-bank-service-d... [2] https://innovationinbanking.efma.com/content/articles/transforming-dbs-bank-tech-company https://innovationinbanking.efma.com/content/articles/transf... [3] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2014-01-07_112742.html https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2014-01... [4] https://www.dbs.com/about-us/who-we-are/our-heritage https://www.dbs.com/about-us/who-we-are/our-heritage