The Monetary Authority of Singapore is ending a six-month ban on DBS Group Holdings Ltd, saying it 'has made substantive progress to address the shortcomings identified from service disruptions experienced by its customers in 2023'.

(April 30): Singapore’s financial regulator is ending a six-month ban that restricted DBS Group Holdings Ltd from non-essential activities, after the country’s largest lender improved weaknesses related to a series of glitches in its digital banking services.

The bank “has made substantive progress to address the shortcomings identified from service disruptions experienced by its customers in 2023,” the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement on Tuesday. The measures that were effective on Nov 1 included a ban on acquiring new business ventures and reducing the size of its local branch and ATM networks.

MAS is keeping the elevated additional capital requirement on DBS’ risk-weighted assets for operational risks, which was put in place in May 2023. The 1.8 times multiplier translated to about S$1.6 billion (RM5.59 billion) in total additional regulatory capital at the time.

The regulator will closely monitor the bank’s progress on the remaining improvements as well as the effectiveness of the measures implemented, it said. The additional capital requirement will be lifted when the bank has showed its ability to maintain service availability and reliability, and handle any disruptions effectively, MAS said.

“The pause has allowed us to reflect on the areas we needed to improve on, and to better address them,” chief executive officer Piyush Gupta said in a separate statement. The lender continues to simplify and boost its systems architecture, among other measures, according to DBS, which reports first-quarter results on Thursday (May 2).