🌏 APAC Desk: DBS lends to AI, mostly with other people's money
DBS has originated about S$25B of AI-related deals this year, often as lead manager on syndicated loans, and kept only a fraction on its own books, CEO Tan Su Shan said, according to Bloomberg (Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance). Why it matters: arranging loans and selling most of them on earns fees without tying up much capital. It also limits DBS's exposure if, as she said, the market is repricing AI risk. Q3 results are out 5 November.
Grab's financial services revenue grew 59% year on year to $134M in Q2, and the segment's adjusted EBITDA loss shrank to $15M from $26M. The loan book tripled to $2.3B (it doubled without newly consolidated Superbank), and deposits across GXS, GXBank and Superbank reached $2.5B. In July, Grab completed its acquisition of US investing app Stash (Grab Q2 2026). Why it matters: it's a super-app using ride and delivery data to decide who to lend to, across three countries and three bank licences.
