Dbs Group Hldgs Ltd Ord

Okay, good morning everyone and welcome to DBS's third quarter financial results briefing. This morning we announced that quarter profit before tax up 1% to a record $3.48 billion and ROE of 17.1%. Nine-month total income and profit before tax reached new highs. As per our norm, our CEO Tan Tushan and CFO Cheng Sok Hui will start by sharing more about the quarter. Both will be speaking to slides which you will see on screen. The slide can also be found on our investor relations website. And thereafter, we will take media questions. So without further ado, stop me.

Thanks, Agnes. And good morning, everyone. I'll start with slide two. We delivered a strong set of results in the third quarter. Pre-tax profit rose 1% year-on-year to a record $3.48 billion, with ROE at 17.1% and ROTE at 18.9%. Total income grew 3% to a new high of $5.93 billion. Group net interest income was little changed as strong deposit growth and proactive balance sheet hedging mitigated the impact of lower rates. Fee income and treasury customer sales reached new highs led by wealth management, while markets trading income increased on lower funding costs and a more conducive trading environment. For the nine months, pre-tax profit rose 3% to a record $10.3 billion as total income increased 5% to $17.6 billion from growth across both the commercial book and markets trading. Net profit was 1% lower at $8.68 billion due to minimum tax of 15% that has come into effect. As the quality remained resilient, the NPR ratio was stable at 1.0%, while specific allowances were 15 basis points of loans for the quarter, and 13 basis points for the 9 months. Allowance coverage was 139% and 229% after considering collateral. Capital remained strong. The CET1 ratio was 16.9% on a transitional basis and 15.1% on a fully phased-in basis. The board declared a total dividend of 75% per share for the third quarter, comprising a $0.60 ordinary dividend and a $0.15 capital return dividend. Slide 3. Third quarter year-on-year performance. Compared to a year ago, Third quarter pre-tax profit was 1% or 42 million higher, while net profit declined 2% or 73 million to 2.95 billion due to higher tax expenses from the global minimum tax. Commercial book net interest income fell 6% or 238 million to 3.56 billion as the impact of lower rates was partially mitigated by balance sheet hedging and strong deposit growth. the group's net interest income of $3.58 billion was little changed. Fee income rose 22% or $248 million to a record $1.36 billion, led by wealth management, while other non-interest income increased 12% or $61 million to $578 million as Treasury customer sales reached a new high. Markets trading income rose 33% or 108 million to 439 million due mainly to higher equity derivative activity. Extensors increased 6% or $144 million to $2.39 billion, led by higher staff costs as bonus accruals grew in tandem with a stronger performance. The cost-to-income ratio was 40% and profits before allowances was 1% or $35 million higher at $3.54 billion. Total allowances fell 5% or $6 million to $124 million. Specific allowances remain low at 169 million or 15 basis points of loans. 45 million of general allowances were written back mainly due to a large repayment. Slide 4, third quarter on quarter performance compared to the previous quarter, net profit was 5% to $130 million higher. Commercial book net interest income fell 2% to $67 million as net interest margin declined 9 basis points to 1.96% from lower SORA. Group net interest income was 2% to $70 million lower. Fee income rose 16% to $190 million, led by wealth management. Other non-interest income grew 11% or $56 million, driven by higher treasury customer sales. Market trading income was 5% or $21 million higher. Expenses increased 5% or $133 million from higher bonus accruals. The cost-to-income ratio was stable. Total allowances were 7% or $9 million lower. Slide 5, 9-month performance. For the 9 months, total income and pre-tax profit reached new highs. Total income rose 5% or $777 million. and pre-tax profit increased 3% or $260 million to $17.6 billion and $10.3 billion respectively. Net profit was 1% or $111 million lower at $8.68 billion due to higher tax expenses. Commercial book net interest income declined 3% or $310 million to $10.6 $9 billion due to a 27 basis point compression in commercial net interest margin. Group net interest income rose 2% or $211 million to $10.9 billion as the impact of lower interest rates was more than offset by balance sheet hedging and strong deposit growth. Fee income grew 19% or $599 million to a record $3.80 billion as wealth management and loan-related fees reached new highs. At a non-interest income of $1.65 billion, it was only 2% or $32 million higher due to non-recurring items in the previous year. Excluding these items, Treasury customer sales grew 14% to a new high. Markets trading income of $1.22 billion rose 60% of $456 million, marking the second highest level on record. The growth was due mainly to higher interest rate and equity derivative activities. Expenses increased 6% or $377 million. to $6.88 billion with the cost-to-income ratio stable at 39%. Profit before allowances grew 4% of $400 million to a record $10.7 billion. Specific allowances remain low at $439 million or 13 basis points of loans, while general allowances of $143 million were taken. Slide 6, net interest income. Group net interest income for the third quarter of $3.58 billion was 2% lower from the previous quarter and little change from a year ago. Lower interest rate impacted net interest margin, which declined 9 basis points quarter on quarter and 15 basis points year on year to 1.96%. We continue to mitigate the impact of lower rates through two factors. The first is proactive balance sheet hedging, which has reduced our net interest income sensitivity and cushioned the impact of lower interest rates. Second is strong deposit growth, which was $19 billion during the quarter and $50 billion from a year ago. The growth in deposits exceeded loan growth and the surplus was deployed into liquid assets. This deployment was accretive to net interest income and return on equity, though it modestly reduced net interest margin. For the 9 months, group net interest income rose 2% to $10.9 billion despite a 9 basis point compression. in net interest margins to 2.04%. The resilience in net interest income reflects the combined effects of balance sheet growth and of hedging. Slide 7. Deposits. During the quarter, the strong momentum in deposit inflow was sustained, with total deposits rising 3% or $19 billion in constant currency terms to $596 billion. The growth was led by CASA inflow of $17 billion, most of which was in SING dollars. The CASA ratio rose to 53%. Over the nine months, deposits grew 9% of $48 billion, with more than half of the increase from CASA. Liquidity remained healthy. The group's liquidity coverage ratio was 149%, and net stable funding ratio was 114%, both comfortably above regulatory requirements. Slide 8, Loans. During the quarter, gross loans was little changed in constant currency firms at $443 billion. Increases in trade and wealth management loans were partially offset by a decline in non-trade corporate loans from higher repayments. As deposit growth outstripped loan growth, surplus deposits were deployed to liquid assets. This deployment was accretive to net interest income and ROE, while it modestly reduced net interest margin. Over the nine months, loans rose 3% or $14 billion, led by broad-based growth in non-trade corporate loans. Slide 9 Fee income. Compared to a year ago, third quarter gross fee income rose to a record $1.58 billion. The increase was broad-based and led by wealth management, which grew 31% to a new high of $796 million from growth in investment products and bank assurance. Loan-related fees were up 25% to $183 million from increased yield activity. Transaction services and investment banking fees were also higher. Compared to the previous quarter, gross free income rose 13% led by wealth management. For the nine months, gross free income reached a record $4.48 billion led by new highs in wealth management and loan-related fees. Slide 10 shows the wealth management segment income. The third quarter wealth management segment income grew 13% year-on-year to $1.54 billion. The growth was driven by a 32% increase in non-interest income, which more than offsets a decline in net interest income from lower rates. For the nine months, wealth management segment income grew 10% to a record $4.38 billion due to a 28% rise in non-interest income. Assets under management grew 18% year-on-year in constant currency terms to a new high of $474 billion. The percentage of AUM in investments also reached a new high of 58%. Net new money inflow was $4 billion. Slide 11. Customer-driven non-interest income. We have introduced a new slide to provide a clearer view of non-interest income, which is driven by customer activity. This comprises two components in the commercial book, net fee income and treasury customer sales. For the fee and treasury customer sales, for under different lines of the P&L, Financial statements due to accounting treatment, they should be viewed equally as they are both driven by consumer and corporate customers' demand for financial products. For the third quarter, customer-driven non-interest income grew 22%. Net fee income rose 22% to $1.36 billion, while treasury customer sales rose a similar 21% to $581 million. Both were at new highs and led by strong wealth management activity. For the nine months, customer-driven non-interest income rose 17%, driven by record net fee income and treasury customer sales. Slide 12, expenses. Nine-month expenses rose 6% from a year ago to 6.88 billion due to higher staff costs from salary increments and bonus accruals. The cost-to-income ratio was stable at 39%. Third-quarter expenses were 6% higher than a year ago at 2.39 billion, led by higher staff costs as bonus accruals rose in tandem with a stronger performance. Compared to the previous quarter, expenses grew 5%. The cost-to-income ratio was at 40%. Slide 13, non-performing assets. Asset quality was resilient. Non-performing assets declined 1% from the previous quarter to $4.63 billion. New MPA formation at $113 million for the quarter was below the recent quarterly average and was more than offset by repayments and write-offs. The NPR ratio was stable at 1.0%. For 9 months 2025, new MPAs were $449 million significantly lower than the $739 million from the prior period. Slide 14, specific allowances. Third quarter specific allowances amounted to $117 million or 15 basis points of loans stable from the previous quarter. For the nine months, specific allowances were $430 million or 13 basis points of loans. Slide 15, general allowances. As at end September, total allowance coverage stood at $6.43 billion, with $2.35 billion in specific allowance reserves and $4.07 billion in general allowance reserves. The general allowance reserves comprise two components, baseline GP and overlay GP. Baseline GP refers to the GP set aside for base scenarios. In addition to the base scenarios, we incorporate stress scenarios for macro uncertainty and sector-specific headwinds. As at 30 September 2025, the total GP stack of 4.1 billion comprised baseline GP of 1.6 billion and overlay GP of 2.5 billion. You may recall that we had increased GP overlay by $200 million during the first quarter this year to incorporate tariff uncertainty. Slide 16, Capital. The reported CET1 ratio declined 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter to 16.9%, driven by higher RWA rates. and partially offset by profit accretion. On a fully phased-in basis, the pro forma ratio was stable at 15.1%. The leverage ratio was 6.2%, more than twice the regulatory minimum of 3%. Slide 17, Dividend. The Board declared a total dividend of $0.75 per share for the third quarter, comprising an ordinary dividend of $0.60 and a capital return dividend of $0.15. Based on yesterday's closing share price and assuming that total dividends are held at $0.75 per quarter, the annualized dividend yield is 5.6%. Slide 18, summary. So in summary, we delivered a record third quarter and nine-month pre-tax profit with ROE above 17%. Total income was also at a new high as we sustained the strong momentum in wealth management and deposit growth, while mitigating external rate pressures through proactive balance sheet hedging. As we enter the coming year, we'll continue to navigate the pressures of declining interest rates with nimble balance sheet management and our ability to capture structural opportunities across wealth management and institutional banking. So thank you for your attention. I'll now hand you to Fuchan.

Thanks, Sokhi. So hello and good morning. As you have now seen our numbers and Sokhi's comments, I will say that the Q3 was a solid quarter. I think the team delivered a solid quarter in spite of very strong interest rate headwinds, especially in Singapore. We had a record top line total income, record fee income, record treasury sales, and record PBT. Of course, tax, we had to pay the minimum tax, so that took off some of our net profit upside. And I guess from my slide, both the fact that we had some nimble hedging and we were able to capture some opportunities when the market became volatile speaks to our resiliency. So it was hedging as well as some fixed rate assets. And what was also pleasing was the fact that we saw a huge amount of deposits coming back to us, a large chunk of that was also CASA. So at 19 billion quarter-on-quarter growth, a lot of that surplus deposits was deployed to HQLA. And in terms of the structural growth, I think we had both structural and cyclical growth, and both the structural and cyclical growth came into gear in Q3 because the capital markets were very strong. So we saw strong momentum in wealth management fees, up 23% quarter on quarter, 31% year on year. These are very strong numbers. And, you know, wealth management, AUM, remained very high. I think what was also pleasing is we are seeing the momentum also travel to the retail and retail wealth segment as well. We're trying to get more of that digital flows back. And so, you know, we had a whole refresh of our digital wealth strategy, which is now yielding fruit. So that's also quite pleasing to see. The second market and cyclical opportunity is in capital markets, in both ECM and DCM. So for DCM, as rates come down, corporates are coming back to the market. And we are winning market share. I told our DCM team that I think we have a right to win in the global market. And so, to my surprise, actually, you know, starting from very low base, we're now number six in the Middle East, for example, in a MENA league table as of October 2025. We did 32 DCM issuances, including 13 public bond yields, and we're number one in private placement league table for the key Middle East banks. So... I think if we put our minds to it, we can execute, and I think both the capital markets, GCN, DCN, ECN pipeline looks good, the wealth pipeline looks good, and the fake pipeline looks good. So these are both cyclical and structural opportunities to capture more feeds. The other momentum is in loan fees. You saw the loan fees up 20% year on year. That's also structural, because as I alluded to the last two quarters, I think that speaks to IBG's focus on winning market share, wallet share, and mind share, and having expertise in the industries that we cover and we target. So... So both, you know, the loan related fees and market trading as well was very strong, up 33% year on year. Very strong equity derivatives activities from clients, strong warehousing gains, good customer flows. Then, I want to talk about the digital assets. I alluded to this also in the last quarter, where we talked about the whole digital asset ecosystem, and how we had a head start, and how we want to continue to drive this head start. And I think the Genius Act changed everything, as I said before. And we're still waiting to see how regulations turn out, because different regulators have different priorities, and different timelines, and different... you know, ordinances. But we've gone ahead. I mean, for example, this quarter we issued some structured notes, or we tokenized structured notes on the Ethereum blockchain. We've also announced that we are working with Franklin Templeton's Benji fund to list that on our digital exchange. We're also working with Ripple to use Ripple currency, digital currency, in and out of the Benji money market fund as well. So we're pretty active in the tokenized ecosystem. We've been tokenizing deposits for a while now, and that's also seeing a lot of customer interest. And we've also started to look at the potential for repo and collateralized use cases as well for tokenized money market funds. Asset quality, as Songhee alluded to, pretty resilient. NPR ratio at 1%. And again, I think this speaks to the discipline of the team. Many years back, before COVID, we started to watch list industries or sectors that we felt were to come under scrutiny or under some pressure, that's worked out for us. So we have been quite early in monitoring clients that might get into problems. And in fact, if you see We had quite a fair amount of loan repayments in Q3 this year. And surprisingly, that came out of Hong Kong, primarily Hong Kong real estate. So I think we've been pretty disciplined in who we bank. We've onboarded and banked really the big blue chip companies. Our LTVs against real estate is pretty conservative. And that's why I think our LPA formation remains at a multi-year low. Next slide, please. So I've been traveling quite a fair bit in Q3, you know, for the IMF and IAF board meetings in Washington, to the FII in Saudi, the Hong Kong MA Monetary Authority Financial Leaders Conference this week. and to visit my colleagues and iBlack in China and visiting regulators and colleagues in our core markets, Taiwan, China, I'll be in India next week, etc. And I will say that there's a lot of momentum in deal flow. There's a lot of momentum in the US, certainly in the whole tokenized stablecoin, digital asset ecosystem. Outside the US, there's a lot of momentum in terms of trade, potential trade flows, both because customers want to diversify their supply chain and also customers are looking for new markets to grow. So this shift in trade and investment flows is something that our team is very focused on. And we're looking at growing the pipeline state into our regional trade between Asia countries, ASEAN countries, China to ASEAN countries, Singapore, China, et cetera. There's been a lot of two-way conversations and, you know, and, you know, the up, the The upscaling of the China agreements that most countries in ASEAN have is also being put in place. China GCC trade also is projected to double to 1.9 trillion by 2025. So there's some good structural shifts in global macro flows that we want to play to that. I talked about the capital markets revival. You all know about the long pipeline of deals in Hong Kong and China. We're trying to play to our strengths there as well. Singapore also has a strong pipeline and the MAS recent measures to rejuvenate the markets here. The equity market development program seems to be working as well to create some liquidity and some momentum. I was struck also by the concentration of the market cap of the U.S. U.S. still is about 70% of global market cap valuation at $72 trillion, Hong Kong at $7 trillion, China at $13 trillion, Singapore at $0.6 trillion, I think. There could be, you know, next year, let's see, maybe valuations will change. But the good news is, as I said, the pipeline for ECM remains very strong in our part of the world in Asia and Japan. Another theme I want to talk about was the internationalization of the R&B and also the revitalization of the Chinese market. You see that from the authorities talking about high-quality growth. You see also a lot of investments in AI and chips. The enterprise use of AI is formidable, and their commitment to internationalizing the use of R&B for global trade, that figure has quadrupled over the last three years. That's also admirable. The Southbound Bond Connect is also busy. There's also quite good structural growth in wealth management onshore in China. So wealth, global net wealth reached 512 trillion in 2024. I think that's grown a lot this year because of the market moves and also some wealth creation at the high end. So we remain committed to our strong focus on wealth management. The teams that Zikun and his team hired over the last couple of years, are starting to mature and yielding returns for us. Similarly for IBG, the FIG focus, the Institutional Client focus is also yielding good returns. I've gone to see several global Soronga funds with my team, pension funds with my team. And I think, you know, DBS has a role to play with these global I.I. and fake clients across various products from custody to FICC flows, to digital flows, to ECM, DCM block placements, to repos, reverse repos, et cetera. So I think playing to our strengths in wealth and fake is a structural challenge. I've said this time and time again, I feel like I'm a grandmother nagging, but I do believe that these two growth pillars will continue to yield returns in the next few years. And in terms of other big theme, of course, everyone's talking about AI, generative AI, agentic AI. You know, when will agents start using, when will customers start using their own agents to deal with bank agents, etc.? ? Suffice to say, we've been at the forefront of this. We have been rolling up both horizontal and vertical use cases, some working out quite well, some less well. But I think the momentum continues to be pretty strong. And we're working with various partners, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in Asia, to accelerate the tech adoption. What's pleasing to me is pretty much most of our staff have started to use it. They're saving time, they're taking a lot of productivity saves in the more mundane work, like writing credit memos, KYC, transaction screening, and our wealth managers are using it also. to good stead in our wealth co-pilot. Our tech guys are using it for coding, for developing. So I think there's good momentum there and that will continue to evolve. Last but not least, I talked about the growing interest in tokenization and stablecoins. As you know, we had a head start in 2021. We will continue to support regulators in their quest to stay ahead of the trends. Right now, our key focus is on tokenizing deposits. For stablecoins, we will play where there is a play in different jurisdictions. But I think that regulations have to evolve there for us to have a clearer look. In the meantime, you know, we believe that we can play a role, more of a picks and shovels kind of role in the whole asset ecosystem. Whether you want to tokenize your assets, you want to tokenize your deposits, you want to trade on our digital exchange, you want to custodize with us, you want to use it for payments, etc. We've learned how to do it end-to-end. So I think that's also a differentiator for us. So the right side is a short pitch of DBS as a differentiator bank, increasingly in a bifurcated volatile world, with geopolitics being volatile. I think our clients are looking for a safe, neutral bank for their long-term needs. And I think DBS plays to that. We've been recognized by Global Finance as Asia's safest bank now for 17 years running. and we're ranked number two globally amongst the 50 top safest commercial banks. So I think being safe, being dependable plays to our strength, and I think we have a right to win more market share. As a diversified bank, we are now seeing global ultra-high net worth thinking they should have a bank in Europe or Switzerland, a bank in the US, and quite possibly a bank in Singapore, and that bank should really be us. MSCs and FIs as well are looking for a diversifier bank for both their custody needs and their transaction needs, and I think that plays to our strength. As a disruptor bank, having an innovative head start, the fact that we can work with the likes of Franklin Templeton or Ants or JD or any of these big platform companies, means we are a head start. We've been holding a lot of teachings for our clients, and as the world starts using more generative and agentic AI, we want to be at the forefront of that as well. As I said before, I think the fact that we've organized our data, the fact that we've organized our our tech, and the fact that we've organized our people and processes quite a few years ago, thanks to Piyush and the team's foresight. I think we've created a digital and data moat to be able to embrace these big AI moves that are upon us. So last but not least, the digital and data capabilities I've talked about. We were just recognized the world's best AI bank at Global Finance Inaugural AI Awards this year. We've implemented over 1,500 AI models, 370 different use cases, and we hope to create an impact of billion dollars in AI this year. Okay, so next slide is the 2026 outlook. And we are looking for total income to hold steady to 2025 levels in spite of significant interest rates and FX headwinds. We're looking at SORA to hold at current levels of 1%. well, to hold at the sort of the one month and three month MAS bill levels at about 1.25. That means there's a 60 basis point decline from this year's average. We're looking at three Fed rate cuts next year. and we are also looking, but we're also using for our forecast the strongest thing. So there you have significant interest rate headwinds and FX headwinds, which we want to make up for with volume growths and fee growth. So The commercial book, non-interest, income growth to be in the high single digits. And the reason for that as well is we have great headwinds on the loan side. We also have tailwinds in terms of our cost of funds because of our floating liabilities as well, mostly in dollars. We are looking to continue to have mid-teens growth in wealth management and also in FIG, and to maintain our cost-income ratio at the low 40% range. And SP, we've assumed that it will normalize to 17 to 20 basis points. So far through the cycle, this has worked. And asset quality remains resilient. We're comfortable, but we're not complacent. We're still watching constantly stress testing on different exposures for impact from trade, geopolitics, real estate, etc. And so if the macro conditions stay resilient, we could actually also have some rooms for GP write-backs. And if conditions soften, we have quite a lot of buffer, as you heard from Sokhi earlier on, through our allowance reserve and our strong capital ratios. So we're looking for net profit to be slightly below 2025 levels or pretty fast.

That's it from me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sushant. We can now proceed to take questions from the media. So if you have a question... please tap on the raise hand icon in WebEx, and then we will call on you. And when we do that, please accept the invitation to unmute yourself before proceeding with your question. Do also state your name and the media you represent before asking your question. Okay, we have a question from Nailun from BT. Okay.

Hi, this is Nylon from BT. I just want to check, right, because I understand you have a 200 million GP already taken and it starts over here, but then are you foreseeing, like, you know, you to take more of that, especially as you mentioned, you have some macroeconomic uncertainties or sector-specific headings?

Yeah, so let me clarify. I was saying that actually our stack of total GP, 4.1 billion, comprise two components, right? The baseline GP and the overlay GP. And the overlay GP is quite substantial at 2.5 billion. If you look at our September 2020... Last year, it will be about 2.3 because we did top up 200 million this year. In the second quarter, we said it's actually sufficient. So we are not topping up further. So just to convey that we are actually very adequate in terms of our general provision levels.

Okay, thank you.

I would say even more than adequate. Yeah, more than adequate because we actually exceeded the MES 1%.

Thank you.

Okay, question from Gula.

Hi, thanks Sushant and Sophie. Congratulations on the very good results in the current environment. Can I ask at least three questions? So the first one would be on the capital return and the share buyback. Because I think that Sokri has said that you are committed to paying $3 in total dividends for this year and next year. And 2027, is it? Could you just correct me on that if that's wrong? And then there was a share buyback program. And how much of that have you completed? Because it looked like a very low percentage based on, well, I must have missed out, you know, it looked like 10 to 12%. I'm not quite sure. So what happens if you don't complete it within the timeframe? And what are the other avenues for management? to return the earmarked amount to shareholders. That's one question. Shall I carry on? Okay, then you mentioned that your deposits, because you've got more deposits and a lot more excess deposits will be deployed into HKLA. Are these local government bonds? Are these US government bonds? Or are they corporate bonds? And what's the currency and duration like? I mean, you don't have to say the company or the country, but just an idea. whether they're Sing dollars or non-Sing dollars. And the last question is funding related. Again, you have no 81s anymore based on your third quarter. So, you know, what are your funding plans? Are they cheap now? Is there any reason? Is there any regulatory reason why you don't have any? That's it. I think that's it. I mean, two more general questions, but only when everyone else has asked this.

Thanks, Gul. I'll take the first one at Sushant, and then Sophie will take the HKLN 81 question. So on the dividends, we've always said that, you know, our stock, we had $8 billion of excess stock of capital to return. We remain committed to returning that. Three was allocated to share by banks. We've done about 12% of that. And our philosophy is to buy it when the market is bad, right? So that's the philosophy. We don't want to chase it up. And the $5 billion is to be returned to shareholders through the capital return dividends. So as you can see, we've got many different things in our toolbox to pay our shareholders back. You've got your normal dividend, of course. You've got step-up dividend. Then you've got the capital returns dividend, and then you have the stock buyback. And so based on that, we intend to keep to that $8 billion commitment.

How much of that $8 billion has been returned?

The share buyback 12% would be $371 million.

And then the dividend return was $850 million. It's $0.15 per share per quarter, if you remember. So in total, we've basically used 15% of the $8 billion.

Oh, okay. So there's a lot more. One 5%.

No, but the $5 billion is committed, right? Because it's $0.15 per quarter. So that's $0.60 a year. So that's committed. So over three years, that will be all paid back.

And the three years is 25, 26, 27, right?

Yes, correct. We started in 25 for the capital return dividend.

25, 26, 27. So we will end by end 27. Correct. Okay.

Okay, got it.

Maybe the only thing I would add is that we also communicated that we would be able to step up ordinary dividends in the fourth quarter for 2025 year and then 2026 year.

By $0.06, is it?

By $0.06 in the fourth quarter, which means the full year impact is $0.24. Okay.

And the full year impact will be next year, right?

will step up end of this year so you can get it approved at the agm in march 2026 and then it will actually flow through so fully in practice 24 cents for ordinary dividend so what you see on the slide at 60 cents we then step up to 66 cents per quarter okay And then you still have your 15 cents on the capital return dividend, which we have commenced up to FY2027. Okay.

So it's the HQLA and the 81, yeah.

Okay, so your next question was about the HQLA. So you see on my slide, in the loan slide, you see that loan, actually the growth rate was slower than the deposit growth. And for nine months, our HQLA, which you can also see in the military disclosure, is actually up 30 billion. And these are all in high-quality liquid assets. So they are in government securities. They are in U.S. government securities. These are the main items. where you're seeing the increase. So very, very safe assets. And then you had a question on the AT1, because our CET1 is already at such a high level, conditional basis, we're at 16.9%, so there's no point raising AT1. The CET1 currently doubles up, so for AT1, the stack is already quite a lot, so we don't intend to actually sort of pay up for AT1 until the until the need arises, because you see on the slides as well.

Because it's not a regulatory thing with all the stuff that's going on with Credit Suisse and UBS and what Basel wants and doesn't want, right?

Sometimes we need AT1s because they don't have enough CET1s, right?

So regulators set CET1 minimum, AT1, and tier 1, and then total. So it's a stack. So if your CET1 is really well above the minimum, they can come towards tier 1 capital.

Okay. All right. Okay, that's all I have on that. I'm just wondering, what's the difference between your structural tailwinds and your cyclical tailwinds? That's the other sort of general question. And the other one is, you know, you said that bank assurance was one of the reasons why you had the fee income. You've got a bank assurance agreement with Manulife. And I'm just wondering, that one is 15 years. How much longer does that have to run? And what is the state? I mean, is it as good... Is it performing to what Manulife wants?

Okay, so on your question around what are the difference between the structural and cyclical tailwinds. So cyclical tailwinds to me are what, you know, cyclical. So the markets are strong, stock markets are up, you know, money supply is up, etc. That's sort of cyclical. Structural is more long-term. So where you have you know demographics um demographic reasons or structural reasons for the growth so for me the cyclical tailwinds was just the markets were very strong right q2 q3 the markets were strong after liberation day the rally was a lot higher than most people expected uh the structural tailwinds i talked about was the fact that there was structural wealth creation so the wealth management The main structural growth for Asia and frankly for the rest of the world, for the US particularly. And then the structural growth in FIG, II, Asset Funding Management, quite a lot of these funds, there are clients, they've seen trillions of dollars in asset growth. So you've got these two growth pillars that are structural. On Manulife, I think we signed in 2015. It was 15 plus 1, so 16 years in total. Because of 2033. 2033. And the partnership has been growing really well. It's been fantastic, actually. Sukun is here. You want to say anything?

Yeah, I think it's... It's gone very well. So, I mean, earlier on, when we talk about our wealth fees, right, the wealth fees growth has been a factor of both investments and insurance at the same time.

So there is a need for insurance, life estate planning, etc. And that is another structural theme, because you look at China, silver economy, Singapore, Hong Kong, All these people need to plan, and actually that's our USP, right? We're good at onboarding these clients, discussing their long-term plans, putting it in estate planning, helping to plan for the next generation, for their own life, et cetera. And that creates a very sticky long-term relationship for your wealth clients. And Manulife has been a great partner in helping us to design suitable products for our customers, you know, having a portfolio approach and thinking very long-term. The, you know, the long-term investors in Asia, good credit rating, et cetera. So they've been a very good partner.

Okay, thanks. Thank you very much. Thanks for all the time I've taken.

Thanks. Thanks, Gula. Next question from Bloomberg, Rebecca. Speaker, you will need to unmute yourself.

Okay, sorry. It just took me a second to figure that out. So I'm with Bloomberg. My name is Rufika, and I had two questions for Sushant. You've talked about wealth as a structural growth pillar with mid-teens growth targeted. Given recent high-profile wealth scandals in the region involving, you know, RMs and client fund misappropriations, what safeguards do you have in place? You know, are you seeing any reputational or compliance headwinds? And what do you think of extra regulatory scrutiny off the back of these scandals? How does this affect Singapore as a wealth hub?

Okay, I'll start, and then Sukun's going to weigh in. Okay. So I think, you know, by the way, we have wealth presence in all our core markets, so it's not just Singapore, right? But, of course, Singapore is a major financial hub for us and for many of our peers. Right. And I will say that it's – The bar is set very, very high right now in Singapore and in all the major jurisdictions. The bars are set very high for KYC and AML, number one. Number two, there's been very rigorous source of wealth declarations, and we all need to triangulate with proof of documents, etc. And there's no let-up in these high standards. It still takes a fair amount of time to onboard a new client because of these. And transaction surveillance remains a key part of triangulating for bad money, right? Right. Every bank sees what they see, right? So if you don't see the flows between the Middle East and the U.S., for example, and you will only see the flows from your bank to another party. And so when you have big scandals like this, it behoves multiple countries and jurisdictions to work together, right? to be able to triangulate the global flows. Because otherwise, most banks will see their own bilateral flows and they don't see the other flows. And you need to put the pieces of the jigsaw together to see that, oh, there is a trend or there's a scam or there's... There are all these patterns. So I will say that these kind of global transaction surveillances remain a challenge. In Singapore, we set up with the regulator something called cosmic, which has been a good platform on which we can look at sort of the banks can work together to weed out the bad actors. And I think that's been working. It's pretty new, but that's been working. But it takes multiple parties to work together to be able to catch these and catch them early. Right.

Can I just add to that? I would say that Singapore is clearly a very, very strong wealth management hub, and it has been growing very, very steadily over the last couple of years. If we look at the standards that we have, I would say that it's something that is aligned with those that are global wealth hubs. If you look at whether or not there are issues that have arisen, I'll say there's nowhere where it will never, there will never be a zero kind of a situation. The important thing is that there is robustness from which the new typologies that we see will lead us to continue to sharpen our capabilities. And we can see in Singapore, The big difference in Singapore is that when things happen, I think the industry comes together very, very quickly between regulators, law enforcement, and the industry to just handle it. And I think that in itself speaks volumes of the strength of Singapore as a continued wealth hub. So I don't see any of these being a hindrance to Singapore becoming a wealth hub. In fact, this speaks to the very strength of Singapore being a wealth hub.

Are there any other broader risks that DBS is weighing out that could affect Singapore's reputation as a wealth hub globally?

Sorry, I don't quite get that question.

Yeah, like any other... I mean, any other threats, I suppose, aside from the scandals, you know?

I'm not sure if you are specifically asking about DBS per se. He's asking about Singapore.

I will say I beg to differ. I think your question, you know, you're asking if there's any risk. I would say that Singapore's status as a clean hub has been reinforced by the swift action taken by the government. Number one. The rule of law here is strong. Singapore as a hub is open for business. It's a diversifier hub, as I said to you earlier on. And it's a digital hub. And there's enough wealth, practitioners here of high quality and standards. And I believe that the authorities are protecting the reputation and the standards here rigorously. The bar is high. I tell you the bar is high for KYC and sorts of wealth verification. So I don't know where you're going with this question, but I will say that you know, the fact that, and we're very open, right? When there's scams, scammers are caught, it's open, it's all declared. So I will say that it should reinforce the seriousness that Singapore takes in keeping the standards high.

I guess maybe if you're, if there are two, so you say risk, right? We're talking about risk, I think the inherent risk It's no different in the financial industry, wherever you operate, right? The difference is we have robust standards, and we deal with it swiftly. If you're asking whether the risk of Singapore being a wealth hub, I think actually what we've done as a nation, we've enhanced that, and in my interactions with clients, I think that continues to be a very, very strong interest. As you can see, the performance of the wealth management business, I think that speaks volumes as to the robustness of the continued growth. And if you ask me whether there's a risk of us being a wealth hub, the answer is no.

Okay. Thank you. That was helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. We are now at 11.42. I think that might be all the time that we actually have because we have an analyst briefing at 11.45. So I think we will wrap things up here right now. Thank you, everyone. And we'll dial out here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.