DBS Group Holdings Ltd.’s exposure to a money laundering scandal in Singapore is about S$100 million ($74 million), mainly from financing properties of those arrested in one of the biggest such cases in the city-state, according to Bloomberg.
The country’s largest bank filed so-called suspicious transaction reports to authorities, Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta said Monday at a briefing after reporting quarterly earnings that beat estimates. New funds continue to flow into the financial hub regardless of the scandal, he said.
“I don’t see the flows to suffer,” Gupta said.
DBS is among several local and international banks that are ensnared in the case, in which more than S$2.8 billion of assets have been frozen or seized by the police. That includes more than 150 properties that are connected to some 10 Chinese-born people who have resided in Singapore for years and were arrested in an island-wide raid in August.
A probe is ongoing, seeking to determine whether the accused laundered illicit gains from overseas online gambling rings to fund their luxe lifestyles in the city-state. Some of the homes seized include luxury condominiums situated in the city’s poshest districts.
Under the bank’s latest results, specific allowances for expected credit losses soared almost eight times from a year ago to S$197 million, or 18 basis points of loans. They were “prudently taken” for exposures linked to a recent money laundering case in Singapore, DBS had said.
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