This article was originally published in the Brand Finance Global 500 2025
DBS Bank recorded a 56% increase in its brand value to USD17.2 billion this year, leading the charge of Singaporean brands in Brand Finance's Global 500 2025. In a recent interview with Brand Finance, Karen Ngui, Managing Director and Head of DBS Foundation, as well as DBS Group Strategic Marketing and Communications, discussed the key drivers behind DBS's success, the pivotal role of employee advocacy, and how the bank's customer-centric approach is shaping its brand's future.
Interview with Karen Ngui

DBS has been a cornerstone in financing Singapore's growth since 1968. How do you see the bank’s mission evolving further to adapt to the changing financial landscape?
As the former Development Bank of Singapore established to finance Singapore’s industrialisation, we’ve always been a different kind of bank – one that is driven by a pioneering spirit and a deep sense of purpose. This was evident in our early days as we financed Singapore’s economic development, helped companies raise capital for growth, and pioneered innovative products and services.
Through the years, our driving force has remained to provide innovative solutions to customers, rooted in a deep sense of purpose. In the last decade, strong employee engagement, customer-centricity and digital leadership translated into strong financial performance as well as a slew of “Best Bank in the World” accolades.
In 2020, with these recognitions under our belt, we set our sights on the loftier vision of becoming the “Best Bank for a Better World”. Implicit in this is a recognition that in an increasingly fragmented world, corporates like ourselves can do our part to drive inclusive and sustainable growth. Our commitment is to be a trusted and valued banking partner to all stakeholders, including customers and society, alike.
Employee advocacy is crucial for brand success. What initiatives does DBS have in place to ensure employees are aligned with the bank's values and are active promoters of the brand?
We firmly believe that the best brands are built from the inside out – driven by the power of collective action to create meaningful and lasting change in the communities where we live and work. Employee engagement is our priority, and at the heart of our transformation journey.
To align employees with our values and inspire them to become active advocates of the brand, we embed our PRIDE! values—Purpose-driven, Relationship-led, Innovative, Decisive, and Everything Fun—with intention and consistency across every aspect of our operations. These principles are integrated into key people programmes such as recruitment, performance appraisals, and leadership development, ensuring that our employees are assessed not only on 'what' they accomplish, but also on 'how' they achieve it.
Through programmes of change, we set out to create a dynamic, start-up-like culture that encouraged a mindset of experimentation and innovation in our employees. This includes an award that fosters a fearless approach to experimentation, as well as hackathons and accelerators that offer hands-on learning opportunities.We have a framework that serves as a psychological safety shield, enabling open discussions, challenging biases, and embracing diverse perspectives. Ultimately, we strive to cultivate an environment where individuals feel safe to ask questions, offer genuine feedback, and seek advice—creating a workplace that thrives on continuous learning and collaboration.
Employees are the driving force behind our mission to create meaningful social impact. As a key partner in the bank’s impact journey, they embody our commitment to making a difference in the communities we serve.
Our sustained volunteering efforts are focused on three core areas: elderly care, education, and the environment across our key markets. To encourage employees to actively contribute, we provide the necessary support and resources to make volunteering accessible and impactful. Employees are granted two official volunteer leave days per year and can seamlessly search and sign up for opportunities through our digital volunteering platform. In 2024, our colleagues contributed over 270,000 hours of their time, positively impacting the lives of over 220,000 beneficiaries.
Employee engagement is a key priority for us, and we use multiple methods of tracking this, including our annual Kincentric MyVoice survey. DBS was ranked1 on LinkedIn’s Top Companies for Singapore for the second consecutive year in 2024, underscoring our reputation as a great place to work.
Our goal is to ensure that our culture and values drive tangible impact for our business, customers, and the community, creating a reinforcing loop that strengthens our culture further. By intentionally designing and nurturing our culture, we’ve built an organisation where employees feel invested in, cared for, and empowered to be active ambassadors for the DBS brand.
DBS has consistently been recognised for its customer-centric approach. What strategies or initiatives does DBS employ to foster brand love and position itself as the preferred banking choice among customers across different segments?
DBS embarked on its digital transformation journey in 2014 so customers can “live more, bank less”, and have more time to spend on the people and things they care about. Whether it is in leveraging artificial intelligence /machine learning and data, blockchain technology, or tying up ecosystem partnerships, the bank seeks to ensure that banking is simple, fast and effortless, increasingly personalised, and seamlessly woven into everyday life. The vision to become the ‘Best Bank for a Better World’ required reimagining what banking stood for and putting the customer at the heart of all our efforts.
We have always believed in transforming banking, and to do that, we also need to transform the future of marketing. Our marketing efforts have since been geared towards showing how we can help solve real customer problems across the segments we serve, from individuals to start-ups to large corporations. What sets us apart is our focus on 'story-doing' rather than just storytelling – we defy category norms to show how DBS is really making a difference. Customers, especially younger audiences, resonate with this approach, seeing banking as a way to create meaningful change in the world. Personalisation is key—the bank has also been leveraging digital in using data and analytics to ensure our marketing resonates with the right audience.
Beyond banking, we amplify our impact through the DBS Foundation, which we launched in 2014 with an initial SGD50 million to champion social entrepreneurship in Asia. At the time, impact-driven businesses faced limited financing and support, but we saw their potential to drive meaningful change. Through our annual grant programme, we have since provided SGD17 million to 140 businesses, helping them raise ten times more funding, while also supporting over 1,200 businesses through mentorship, networking, and capacity-building initiatives. The Foundation initially championed social entrepreneurship, offering grants and holistic support to innovative businesses addressing pressing societal challenges.
In 2024, we expanded the Foundation’s mandate to directly support vulnerable communities, equipping them with critical financial and digital literacy skills. For example, through our partnerships with IMDA and SG Enable in Singapore, we’ve reached over 130,000 individuals and empowered persons with disabilities to live more independently. Moving forward, we’ve pledged SGD1 billion and 1.5 million volunteer-hours over the next decade to foster inclusion and tackle systemic challenges like ageing societies, transforming them into opportunities for innovation and positive change.
We've been named ASEAN’s most valuable bank brand for the 18th year in a row in 2024, which speaks to our core values of trust and safety. Guided by our unwavering focus on purpose, innovation, and empowerment, we continue to create meaningful impact in the lives of our customers and communities. By standing alongside them in times of need, championing financial inclusion, and driving positive social change, we build trust, deepen engagement, and foster lasting relationships.