WELL-POSITIONED FOR GROWTH
The Board and management team recently reviewed and validated our strategy; we will continue to execute on the nine strategic priorities that we articulated three years ago. In the coming years, we will also focus on additional areas to capture emerging megatrends.
As Asia continues to develop, funding requirements for infrastructure developments will grow. This demand cannot be met by bank financing alone and needs to be complemented by debt financing. With increasing financial integration, there will be tremendous growth potential for debt markets in Asia. We will leverage our strengths in fixed income to capture this opportunity.
We recognise that the way we interact with our customers will change with technology. As new channels and forms of distribution develop, we will need to innovate to keep up with technological advances and cater to changing customer behaviour. To help us create the bank of the future, we will embrace innovation and technology to deliver banking in a way that is relevant and beneficial to consumers’ changing needs.
Finally, our actions will be guided by a long-term perspective and the interests of multiple stakeholders we serve – investors, customers, employees, regulators and society. We will continue to grow prudently, maintain a strong balance sheet and uphold the spirit of regulatory reforms to ensure that we can preserve investors’ capital, stand by customers, keep our people employed and serve the broader community throughout business cycles. We believe that to be a force for good, we must deliver sustainable banking. We can create value for our stakeholders over the long term only if our agenda facilitates the production of economic goods and services.
In this annual report, we have taken a step forward to further our commitment to delivering value to stakeholders. We have structured our discussions on our achievements for 2012 around our five key stakeholders. We recognise the symbiotic relationship that exists between stakeholders in the long term, and in achieving our strategic priorities, we serve more than one stakeholder. We are thus drawing on concepts around “integrated reporting”. DBS is the first Singaporean member of a pilot programme set up by the International Integrated Reporting Council.
As we embark on this journey, we will be making continuous improvements over time to better communicate the progress we are making on our strategy and performance.