As of now, U.S. voters face a alternative between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. And business leaders around the globe – including in Southeast Asia, which is attempting to balance its relations with the U.S. and China – are considering what the 2 outcomes will mean.
DBS CEO Piyush Gupta told a Reuters conference audience on Tuesday that Trump’s policy proposals normally paint a “pretty negative picture.” The bank chief pointed to the previous president’s call for tariffs of as much as 60 percent, suggesting that these could lead on to inflation and prompt the Federal Reserve to maintain rates of interest high. This, in turn, will put pressure on currencies around the globe, a few of that are already trading at record lows against the U.S. dollar.
But Gupta, responding to questions on US-China relations, saw a possible silver lining to a Trump presidency. Trump is a “dealmaker … who is not ideologically driven to anything,” he said. The former president could also be joyful to “make deals,” the DBS CEO said, and help him with Chinese officials who “also like to make deals.”
DBS is Southeast Asia’s largest bank by assets. With revenues of $25 billion in 2023, DBS Group Holding ranks tenth within the AssetsThe first Southeast Asia 500 list, which ranks the region’s top-performing firms, has been created.
On the technique to Asia
Geopolitics aside, Gupta was optimistic about Asia’s economic development, noting that Asia is growing twice as fast as the remaining of the world, with growth rates between 4 and 5 percent.
Under Gupta, DBS focuses on and invests in large economies equivalent to Greater China, India and Indonesia. Last August, the Singaporean bank became Taiwan’s largest foreign bank by assets after acquiring Citigroup’s retail banking business on the island.
On Tuesday, Gupta announced that DBS now owns a virtually 19 percent stake in China’s Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank, making it the biggest shareholder within the Chinese bank. (DBS bought a share of 13% in 2021).
In its annual report, DBS said its stake in Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank gives it a firm foothold within the Greater Bay Area, an economic region in southern China that features the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau. On Tuesday, Gupta said he was “extremely optimistic about the region.”
Still, DBS’s CEO downplayed the potential of a “world-shattering, game-changing merger or acquisition,” saying as a substitute that the Singapore bank would search for “complementary deals” to grow its wealth management, SME retail and transaction services businesses.
“Any large-scale acquisition would take too long, cause too much chaos and distract from the future,” he said.
When asked if DBS’s regional activities were dangerous, the DBS CEO replied that they’d to “make a decision whether they wanted to stay long in Asia.” They “cannot stay long in Asia without looking at North Asia,” Gupta said.
