Cover DBS was recognised as the World’s Best Private Bank, World’s Safest Private Bank and World’s Best for Digital Assets at Euromoney’s Private Banking Awards 2026. Photo: Euromoney
DBS was recognised as the World’s Best Private Bank, World’s Safest Private Bank and World’s Best for Digital Assets at Euromoney’s Private Banking Awards 2026. Photo: Euromoney
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DBS has been named World’s Best Private Bank by Euromoney—the first Asia-headquartered institution to receive the top honour in the awards’ 22-year history—signalling a shift in where global wealth leadership now sits
When DBS was named World’s Best Private Bank at the Euromoney Private Banking Awards 2026, it marked a historic first: an Asia-headquartered bank taking the top global accolade in the awards’ 22-year history. The win was part of a triple sweep, with DBS also recognised as the inaugural World’s Safest Private Bank and World’s Best for Digital Assets.
The outcome reflects a broader recalibration within private banking. As wealth creation accelerates across Asia, so too has the region’s influence over how that wealth is managed, placing institutions like DBS in a position once dominated by European and American peers.
Yet scale alone does not explain its rise. That distinction lies in how DBS has structured its private banking business.
At the core is its One Bank approach, which integrates private banking, corporate banking and investment banking into a single platform. The model reflects the reality of its client base: more than 70 per cent are entrepreneurs and business owners whose financial needs extend well beyond portfolio management. Day to day, that translates into advice that can move fluidly from an M&A sale mandate to an IPO discussion, then on to succession, philanthropy or family office structures, depending on where a family is in its journey. The result is a single relationship that can support how wealth is created, professionalised and eventually handed down, rather than a series of disconnected touchpoints
The strategy has also shown up clearly in the numbers. In 2025, wealth management income rose 9 per cent to SGD$5.7 billion, buoyed by strong net new money and resilient fee income. Wealth management non-interest income jumped 27 per cent to SGD$3.3 billion, while a cost-to-income ratio of 46 per cent underscored the bank’s ability to scale without losing discipline
All of this is underpinned by the bank’s AA-rated balance sheet and its base in Singapore, one of the world’s most important wealth hubs. Over the past five years, DBS has doubled its assets under management, a trajectory that signals rising conviction among clients that its integrated wealth platform can match the growing complexity of their financial lives.
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Above Joseph Poon, Group Head of DBS Private Bank, at Tatler Ball Asia 2025
Joseph Poon, Group Head of DBS Private Bank, at Tatler Ball Asia 2025
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Alongside its One Bank model, the franchise has made a conscious push into emerging asset classes and structures that are reshaping what private banking can look like.
It was an early mover in digital assets, giving private clients access to the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx) so they could hold cryptocurrencies and tokenised assets on an institutional-grade platform. In the first half of 2025, DDEx handled more than SGD$3.1 billion in crypto trades and crypto-linked instruments by wealth clients.
Crucially, DBS has also started to anchor these assets in long-term plans rather than treating them as a side bet. Through DBS Trustee, it introduced one of the industry’s first bank-backed trust solutions that can hold cryptocurrencies, attracting inflows of over SGD$2 billion last year as families began to fold digital assets into their estate and legacy frameworks. On the structural side, its multi-family office platform, DBS Foundry VCC, has quickly found favour with globally mobile clients. Launched in 2023, it has crossed SGD$1 billion in assets under management and brought on more than 25 clients.
For Joseph Poon, Group Head of DBS Private Bank, the recognition reflects a wider change in the global wealth landscape.
“The future of private banking belongs to institutions that combine performance with resilience,” Euromoney noted in its award citation, adding that DBS has achieved this “at a level few can match”.
Asia sits at the centre of that shift. The region continues to generate new wealth at pace, driven by entrepreneurs, family businesses and cross-border investors whose ambitions extend beyond traditional markets. DBS’ position places it directly within that movement. “While we are proud of how far we have come, we remain focused on raising the bar further by continuing to innovate, staying close to our clients’ needs and helping shape the future of private banking,” Poon adds.
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Nafeesa Saini is the Features Editor at Tatler Singapore, where she shapes long-form stories on culture, business, philanthropy, wellness, and the people driving change in Asia. With a deep interest in storytelling that intersects meaningfully with identity and impact, she has profiled a diverse range of visionaries, from scientific pioneers in AI and health to creative trailblazers and literary minds.
Nafeesa’s writing includes cover stories and profiles that spotlight influential voices, alongside commentary on the trends reshaping our world.
Off the clock, Nafeesa unwinds with fiction, a good thrift hunt, and ‘brainrot’ TikTok scroll—while always keeping one eye on her next cultural getaway, usually to Indonesia.
