Singapore-based DBS Bank is planning to significantly boost its customer acquisition through the launch of Digibank, its mobile-only bank.
“Our goal is, if we can achieve five million accounts in 4-5 years, that would be great. We are also aiming for a liability book of Rs 50,000 crore and an asset book of around Rs 10,000 crore in the next 2-3 years,” DBS Bank Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta said.
The bank currently serves around 35-40,000 customers in India.
Digibank is offering an interest rate of 7% for its savings account holders. The highest rate currently being offered by any bank in India for savings account holders is 6%.
According to Gupta, the higher rate has been possible due to lower cost to income ratio.
“The overall cost to income ratio for the bank is 45% currently and we expect it to come down due to the digital banking initiative as only one fourth of the employees would be required for digital banking as against the traditional brick and mortar banking,” Gupta said.
DBS Bank currently offers an interest rate of 5% for its savings account holders. As far as the wholly-owned subsidiary (WOS) in India is concerned, it would mainly focus on the small and medium enterprise business, according to another company official.
“We want to become a subsidiary in India so that we can grow and focus on the SME business which accounts for a very small portion in India till now. Globally, about 17-18% is SME banking, 20% is corporate and rest is retail,” DBS India chief executive officer Surojit Shome said.