Net profit at Singapore's DBS grew 1% on an annual basis to SG$1.21bn (US$0.87bn) in the first quarter of 2017, supported by the bank's wealth management operations, where net fee income grew 26% year-on-year to SG$222m. On a quarterly basis, wealth management income was up 41%.
DBS is amongst the biggest structured products distributors in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the SRP database. Year to date, the bank has marketed over 300 structured products excluding non-retail, leverage and flow, worth US$1.3bn, taking the total of live products to 395.
DBS has enjoyed the third-highest cumulative sales volume in the region over the last three years with a total of just under US$60bn, and is the leading Singaporean distributor of structured products, ahead of UOB which collected sales of just over US$19bn in the same period, and OCBC with US$18bn.
Growth in wealth management came from stronger sales of unit trusts and other investment products, the bank stated in its quarterly result. Income in the Consumer Banking / Wealth Management (CB/WM) division rose 13% to SG$1.16bn. The increase was across all product segments and led by double-digit percentage growth in investment products, DBS noted. The division includes services related to current and savings accounts, fixed deposits, loans and home finance, cards, payments, investment and insurance products. Division pre-tax profit rose 22% to SG$534m, on revenue of SG$1.16bn, up 7% YoY.
Institutional Banking income came in at SG$1.32bn as higher transaction service income was offset by lower treasury customer income. Treasury Markets income fell 39% to SG$187m.
Regionally, Singapore net profit declined 9% on an annual basis to SG$850m, but non-interest income rose 3%, due to higher contributions from wealth management and investment banking. Hong Kong profit rose 9%, with non-interest income little changed from the first quarter of 2016 at SG$173m, despite higher income from wealth management.
The non-performance ratio in the CB/WM division stood at 0.5% as of March 31, which compares with a 1.4% group-wide ratio.
Treasury markets, which includes the Bank's structuring, market-making and trading across a broad range of treasury products, but excludes treasury products from the CB/WM and Institutional divisions, saw pre-tax profit plunge 68% to SG$54m, as higher equity and credit product income failed to offset a slump in interest rate and forex products.
In March, DBS updated its digital wealth platform 'DBS iWealth' to allow clients to conduct their banking transactions, manage their wealth and also trade on a single platform. More than 70% of DBS' wealth clients are already online and mobile banking users with the bank and are actively managing their wealth on these digital channels. In 2016, around 25% of wealth clients were acquired online via 'DBS iWealth', according to the bank.
The full DBS Q1 report can be seen here.
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