Expect currency wars in 2016, DBS chief warns

Singapore

2016 will be a year of "currency wars" and a yuan depreciation could lead to more corporate defaults by unhedged Chinese companies, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta warned on Wednesday, adding that he thinks the greenback could start to weaken as early as the second quarter.

The Singapore economy will also go through "perhaps the trickiest and most sensitive time in its economic transformation that we'll see for a long time", he told DBS private bank clients at a luncheon at the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore hotel.