DBS names Frank Wong as Chief Operating Officer

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Organisation structure further aligned to focus on growth and quality of operations

SINGAPORE, February 18 2005 - DBS Group Holdings today announced the appointment of Frank Wong as Chief Operating Officer of DBS Bank and DBS Group Holdings. Mr Wong will retain his other titles of Vice Chairman, DBS Bank and Chairman, DBS Hong Kong.

In connection with Mr Wong's appointment, DBS also announced moves to strengthen senior management oversight and realign business and support functions. These changes will better position the Group to grow its customer franchise across the region, and to enhance the quality of business, operations, controls and risk management.

Consumer Banking and Enterprise Banking, which previously reported to DBS Vice Chairman and CEO, Jackson Tai, will now report directly to Mr Wong. The change, with immediate effect, will consolidate all client-facing businesses across the region, including Consumer Banking, Enterprise Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Global Financial Markets under Mr Wong's oversight.

Mr Tai said: "Over the last two and a half years, we have made significant progress in diversifying our business and geographic footprint, generating new revenue streams, and expanding our earnings capacity.

"With renewed economic growth in the region and stronger foreign bank competition, we must be even better at managing DBS as a highly coordinated Asian bank in order to serve our clients well. We must exploit the interdependencies of our different businesses and be agile in working horizontally across the firm and across geographies.

"We want to serve our consumer, SME and corporate clients seamlessly across businesses and markets as one bank. Frank has been very successful in forging the business priorities and agendas of different teams across the Wholesale Banking Group. We now want him to do the same in our customer-facing businesses across the region."

The Group's support functions, including Group Finance, Group Risk, Group Credit, Group Technology and Operations, Group Legal and Compliance, Group Human Resources and Group Communications, continue to report to Mr Tai.

Mr Wong said: "We serve our Asian customers well when we bring to bear our resources across departments and across the region. DBS' success is built on understanding our customers' needs and responding quickly with highly coordinated solutions that help our customers as they grow across Asia."

About DBS

Headquartered in Singapore, DBS is one of the largest financial services groups in Asia. The largest bank in Singapore and the fifth largest banking group in Hong Kong as measured by assets, DBS has dominant positions in consumer banking, treasury and markets, asset management, securities brokerage, equity and debt fund raising. Beyond the anchor markets of Singapore and Hong Kong, DBS serves corporate, institutional and retail customers through its operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and The Philippines. In China, the bank has branches and representative offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Fuzhou, Tianjin and Dongguan. The Bank's credit ratings are among the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. More information about DBS Group Holdings and DBS Bank can be obtained from our website www.dbs.com.