DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta takes pay cut of 27% amid record profits

Piyush Gupta, the Chief Executive Officer of DBS Group Holdings, Singapore’s premier banking institution, has received a reduced total compensation for the year 2023, according to the bank’s annual report released on Wednesday.

The bank’s annual report revealed that despite achieving a record total income of S$20.2 billion — surpassing the S$20 billion mark for the first time — and a net profit increase of 26% to S$10.3 billion, Gupta’s total compensation was reduced by 27.3% to S$11.2 million (US$8.35 million) from S$15.4 million in 2022.

The reduction comes after a 30% cut in Gupta’s variable pay, reflecting the bank’s approach to accountability following several incidents of digital banking disruptions last year.

The annual report stated, “Despite record 2023 profits and outperformance in many areas, the gaps in technology resiliency resulted in a lower scorecard appraisal by the Board compared to the previous year.”

The reduction in Gupta’s variable pay, along with pay cuts for other members of the group management committee, was announced last year during the briefing of the fourth quarter 2023 results on 7 February, in response to a series of digital disruptions throughout the year that impacted the bank’s customers.

Gupta, addressing the pay cut, highlighted the governance aspect, stating, “We announced that we’re taking accountability at the senior management, starting with me, but also the rest of my senior management team. I think that’s a good element of governance. If you can establish accountability and figure that people take responsibility for making fixes, that’s a good place to start. We’ve been able to demonstrate that and that’s obviously despite a record profit year.”

DBS faced multiple service interruptions in 2023, including a service disruption on 29 March, during which customers were unable to use digital banking services for over 12 hours, a 6½-hour outage on 5 May due to human error, a 12-hour disruption in March from software bugs, significant outages on 14 October affecting online banking and ATM withdrawals, and a brief disruption on 20 October caused by a cooling issue at a data centre.

These incidents led the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to impose strict operational restrictions on DBS. These included a six-month suspension on new business acquisitions, a pause in non-essential IT changes, and a requirement to maintain the current size of the bank’s branch and ATM network in Singapore.

DBS has also earlier committed S$80 million to its technology uplift and resilience roadmap. This investment is intended to pre-empt service disruptions, provide alternate channels during outages, and reduce incident recovery times.