Peter Seah will retire as chairman of DBS Group Holdings and DBS Bank on 31 December 2026 after 16 years, during which the bank expanded its digital capabilities, regional operations and management talent pool. His approach to board-management cooperation supported DBS’s digital transformation, while subsequent disruptions to its technology services in 2023 exposed shortcomings in operational resilience and prompted changes to risk management and board oversight. The transition to a new chairman comes as the bank expands its use of artificial intelligence (AI) across banking operations. When Seah became chairman in 2010, DBS was emerging from the global financial crisis and reassessing its competitive position. Its annual net profit increased from SGD 2.65 billion ($2.08 billion) in 2010 to SGD 11 billion ($8.62 billion) in 2025. Market capitalisation also grew from approximately SGD 35 billion ($27.43 billion) around the beginning of his chairmanship to more than SGD 200 billion ($156.72 billion) in July 2026, according to figures presented by DBS chief executive officer (CEO) Tan Su Shan. Seah will be succeeded on 1 January 2027 by Anthony Lim, an independent director who joined the DBS board in April 2020. The appointment follows Tan’s succession of Piyush Gupta as group CEO in March 2025, completing the leadership transition from the period when Seah and Gupta oversaw much of the bank’s digital transformation. Anthony Lim, DBS board member and incoming board chairman Board commitment supported DBS’s digital transformation Seah recalled that when he became chairman, the board and management were considering how to prepare DBS for a more technology-driven banking environment. “One of the things that the board with management debated was that we should really be preparing the bank for a digital world,” he said. DBS subsequently pursued digital transformation alongside regional expansion and growth in higher-return businesses. In 2014, the bank announced plans to invest an additional SGD 200 million ($156.72 million) in digital technologies over three years, on top of SGD 1 billion ($783.58 million) already invested in strategic technology initiatives. These investments formed part of efforts to modernise infrastructure and change operating practices as more banking services moved to digital channels. Tan credited Seah with giving management “the confidence also to fail, to fail fast and to move forward”. Her account described a board-management relationship in which directors supported longer-term investment decisions despite uncertainty over implementation and outcomes. This relationship was central to Seah’s description of how the board and management worked together, including the responsibilities they shared for decisions made during the bank’s transformation. Tan Su Shan, CEO, DBS Shared accountability placed responsibility on the board “Ultimate accountability will always rest with the board,” Seah said. He explained that board support for management’s strategies carried shared responsibility for the policies directors approved. “If we do things, make mistakes, it’s shared accountability because the board has to approve the policies,” he added. Management remained responsible for executing agreed strategies, while the board retained responsibility for overseeing the associated risks and the bank’s capacity to manage them. Lim described Seah’s chairmanship as one that encouraged discussion before decisions were reached. “The board of a great institution is not a passive audience. It sets direction, holds the line on values, and makes those decisions that management cannot make for itself,” he said. Lim also emphasised open debate and adaptability in responding to uncertainty. The effectiveness of the partnership described by Seah depended on maintaining independent board judgement alongside management support, particularly as digital banking increased the institution’s dependence on technology systems supporting customer transactions. Technology disruptions prompted changes in risk oversight DBS experienced repeated disruptions to its digital banking services in 2023, prompting the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to impose additional supervisory measures. An independent review identified shortcomings in system resilience, incident management, change management and technology risk governance. In November 2023, MAS imposed a six-month pause on non-essential IT changes and required DBS to implement a technology resilience roadmap. The disruptions resulted in reductions to executive remuneration and changes to governance arrangements. Despite record earnings in 2023, DBS reduced Gupta’s variable compensation by 30%, equivalent to SGD 4.14 million ($3.24 million), while the Group Management Committee’s variable compensation was collectively reduced by 21% from the previous year. DBS established a dedicated committee under the Board Risk Management Committee to oversee technology risk remediation and transferred its Technology Risk Management function into the Risk Management Group to strengthen independent oversight. These measures were introduced to address shortcomings in technology risk governance and the monitoring of remediation, alongside technical improvements to system resilience, change management and incident response. DBS subsequently reported tighter change management, a simplified technology architecture, fewer single points of failure and improved incident detection and recovery processes. On 4 November 2026, MAS reduced the operational risk multiplier imposed following earlier digital disruptions from 1.8 to 1.5, following progress in technology and operational risk controls, service reliability and disruption response, according to DBS’s third-quarter financial announcement. The reduction lowered the additional capital requirement arising from the supervisory measure, although the multiplier remained above the normal level. The supervisory intervention and subsequent remediation brought operational resilience into closer focus within the board accountability framework Seah had emphasised. In January 2025, DBS dissolved the Board Risk Management Committee Technology Risk Committee and established a Board Technology Committee with a broader mandate. According to the bank’s corporate governance disclosures, the committee oversees technology strategy, architecture and risk governance, including technology resilience, cybersecurity and governance over the use of AI. Its reported activities in 2025 included reviewing technology risk profiles, risk appetite dashboards, disaster recovery arrangements and management’s responses to digital disruptions. Leadership succession brings continuity of board experience The changes to technology oversight form part of the governance arrangements inherited by the incoming leadership. Seah identified talent development as a priority during his chairmanship. “But to me, what is most important is building the talent pool,” he said. He described leadership development as a joint responsibility of the board and management and said the board had unanimously endorsed Tan’s appointment. Her selection was announced in August 2024 before she assumed the CEO role in March 2025. Seah said he remained chairman following Gupta’s retirement to give Tan and her management team time to settle into their responsibilities. Lim’s appointment continues the board succession process. A DBS director since April 2020, he has participated in board-level risk oversight and management succession planning, including through his chairmanship of the Compensation and Management Development Committee. Lim’s experience provides familiarity with the governance arrangements established during Seah’s chairmanship, including the changes to technology risk oversight. The incoming chairman and CEO will inherit both the board-management partnership Seah described and the additional responsibilities arising from DBS’s technology resilience experience. AI adds oversight requirements for automated decisions DBS is expanding its use of AI across banking operations. According to its 2025 annual report, the bank implemented more than 2,000 AI models across over 430 use cases and reported approximately SGD 1 billion ($783.58 million) in economic value from data analytics and AI and machine learning initiatives during the year. This was a bank-reported estimate of economic value, not incremental net profit. DBS also introduced a generative AI framework covering reusable technology components, governance safeguards, workflow capabilities and prompt engineering to support wider deployment across the organisation. The governance requirements of AI applications extend beyond the availability and recovery of technology systems. They include data quality, model performance, the validation of outputs and the authority assigned to automated processes. Applications used to generate recommendations require appropriate review and accountability, while systems authorised to perform tasks introduce additional considerations involving decision rights, monitoring and intervention. These requirements sit alongside established technology resilience controls involving reliable infrastructure, controlled system changes and incident management. Lim identified AI and digitally native banks as potential challenges to established banking franchises. “There will be challenges to what historically has been our moats: deposits, transfer payments, perhaps even loans,” he said. Tan emphasised the need for “a foundation built on resiliency, on good data, and on customer trust”, together with technology architecture capable of adapting to an increasingly agentic environment. Their remarks place the next phase of DBS’s technology strategy within the governance arrangements inherited from Seah’s chairmanship, where board support for management initiatives must operate alongside oversight of the risks associated with their implementation. Board oversight will depend on how responsibilities operate across the bank DBS’s Board Technology Committee has a mandate covering technology strategy, architecture, resilience and risk governance. Management remains responsible for implementing technology changes and maintaining service reliability, while the board oversees the associated risks. As technology becomes more closely integrated across business functions, directors will need information that identifies operational dependencies, emerging weaknesses and risks that may not be apparent when individual initiatives are assessed separately. The expansion of AI adds complexity to these arrangements as decisions and tasks move between employees, automated systems and business functions. Accountability will depend on whether responsibilities remain identifiable, controls continue to operate as processes change and material risks are escalated before they affect banking services. These are among the governance responsibilities that Lim and Tan will inherit as DBS enters its next phase of technology development, building on the board-management relationship established during Seah’s chairmanship.
