SINGAPORE — After almost 15 years as chief executive officer (CEO) of Singapore's biggest bank DBS, Mr Piyush Gupta will step down when he retires on March 28, 2025. 

The bank announced his imminent departure at its second-quarter financial results media briefing for 2024 on Wednesday (Aug 7).

The 64-year-old is set to be replaced by Ms Tan Su Shan, 56, the group head of institutional banking. The board has also appointed Ms Tan as deputy CEO in the interim. 

Before joining DBS in 2010, Ms Tan was managing director at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley. She was also a former Nominated Member of Parliament from 2012 to 2014. 

Mr Gupta joined DBS in November 2009 after a 27-year stint at Citigroup, where he served as its CEO for Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Under his leadership, DBS had earned numerous accolades from various industry bodies, including the title of World’s Best Digital Bank in 2016 — awarded by Euromoney magazine for the bank’s efforts in digital innovation.

It marked the first time that an Asian bank won a global accolade from the leading financial publication.

DBS has also consistently provided strong returns to its investors throughout Mr Gupta’s tenure.

It now ranks seventh among the world’s 100 largest banks in terms of its return on equity, a key measure of profitability, and ninth in total shareholder returns.

DBS was also the first Singapore Exchange-listed company to cross the S$100 billion mark in market value, which is the number of outstanding shares a company has multiplied by the share's market price.

Despite these achievements, the bank faced some difficulties under Mr Gupta's watch.

It had a spate of digital disruptions between March and October last year, prompting the Monetary Authority of Singapore to bar the bank from any acquisitions of new business ventures for six months in November 2023.

In a move to hold management accountable for these disruptions, DBS announced in February this year that Mr Gupta had his variable pay cut by 30 per cent in 2023.

There was also a problem with DBS’ access control servers in 2021, during which customers were unable to access the bank’s website and mobile application for two days.

The servers handle both log-in and payment verification using means such as biometrics, authentication tokens and one-time passwords.

It was the bank’s worst disruption since 2010, where a major IT outage took down its computer systems for seven hours, leaving its customers unable to withdraw cash from ATM machines. 

Away from DBS, Mr Gupta is also chairman of the board of trustees at Singapore Management University, vice-chairman of the Institute of International Finance, and vice-chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's executive committee.