‘We want to be a dominant player’: DBS targets S$100 billion in cross-border flows by 2030

[SINGAPORE] DBS is aiming to reach S$100 billion in consumer cross-border flows in its core markets by 2030, and doubling its market share to 20 per cent, said Sanjoy Sen, group head of consumer banking, in an interview with The Business Times.

“We see cross-border (payments) being a very important part of our Asia business, and we want to be a dominant player in this area,” he said.

Growing this segment is less about earning fees and more about being “driven by consumer needs”, he added, when asked whether charges on cross-border transactions were a key driver of the S$100 billion target.

“If I’m transferring money for a migrant worker, I have to be as fast, as cheap, and as price-conscious as the customer’s requirement,” he said.

South-east Asia’s largest lender currently has a 10 per cent market share of consumer cross-border flows in its core markets of Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Such volumes, which include transactions such as remittances and travel spending, have grown by 15 per cent year on year since 2022 – about twice the industry’s average growth rate.

In Singapore, cross-border PayNow transactions – the bulk of which are handled by DBS through its PayLah! platform – rose 2.7 times year on year as at October 2025, with the lender expecting volumes to treble over the next two to three years.

In Taiwan, online transaction volumes have trebled in the same period, following the launch of the DBS Remit service in the market.

To meet its S$100 billion goal, DBS also intends to deepen its presence in key payment corridors, including China.

“One of the (rapidly) growing corridors is China, and that’s a huge opportunity,” said Sen, citing a recent deal with Chinese fintech giant Ant International as an example of the partnerships DBS is keen to explore.

With the agreement, signed on the sidelines of the Singapore Fintech Festival last November, DBS’ payments platform PayLah! joined Ant’s Alipay payment ecosystem. This will enable more than three million PayLah! users to make QR code payments to over 150 million merchants in more than 100 markets.

Alipay is one of the two dominant mobile payment systems in China, along with WeChat Pay.

Later this month, DBS customers in Singapore will be able to remit money directly to WeChat wallets in China, said P’ing Lim, regional head of ecosystems and cross-border payments in the lender’s consumer banking group.

Beyond Alipay and WeChat Pay, DBS is also working to make outbound remittances from China more seamless, primarily through the introduction of same-day transfers. This is expected to be made available to all DBS customers in China in the later half of 2026.

Currently, outbound remittances for many financial institutions in China require a few working days to be completed, she said, when asked about the gaps and barriers that persist in the world’s second-largest economy.

This “long duration” can be attributed in part to strict compliance measures and the use of correspondent bank networks. In China, outbound remittances also require documentation on the purpose of funds.

“This means that checks – often done manually – need to be done by both the bank and the correspondent banks,” said Lim.

DBS will do away with manual processes by digitising the entire outbound remittance process, with compliance checks done through its digital app instead, she said. With this, DBS customers in China will be able to remit funds to recipients who would receive them on the same day.

“When the service is rolled out, we expect to be solidly placed at the forefront of China outbound remittances.”