The additional funding will allow the bank and its foundation to enhance their support for businesses-for-impact, and help it address the region’s increasingly pressing societal issues.

DBS is committing an additional S$100 million ($74 million) funding to activate the work of its foundation and other philanthropic and crisis relief measures.

To strengthen its ability to create “impact beyond banking” the bank has also expanded the DBS Foundation’s remit via its existing "Business for Impact" chapter. This will provide more help to social enterprises and businesses-for-impact from ideation stage to full-fledged businesses, while empowering them to tackle social and environmental issues.

The bank also announced its new “Community Impact” chapter, which will bolster contributions to the community via giving and volunteering efforts for education, the elderly, and the environment.

DBS, which operates private banking and wealth management, is Singapore's largest local banking group. This venture is an example of what is called "impact" investing and demonstrates how it crosses over with philanthropy. It also comes at a time when much of Asia continues to be mired in the pandemic and lockdowns.

Established in 2014, the foundation has given S$10 million in grants to more than 90 businesses in the region, and supported 800 others through its development programmes. The foundation has also tapped the bank’s resources to provide wide-ranging support via advocacy, skills training, capacity-building and business opportunities, the bank said.

Businesses supported by DBS Foundation include Singapore-based Homage and Treedots, which received grant funding in 2016 and 2018 respectively. Homage now has a network of 6,000 screened, trained and curated care professionals, and recently-received Series C financing. Not long ago, Treedots received Series A financing towards increasing its market expansion plans. Overseas, 2018 grant recipient PHOOL (India), which processes floral waste into bio-degradable packaging and bio-leathers, has since debuted its materials at the 2021 Paris Fashion Week, the bank said.

“Over the years, we have been giving back to the community in various ways, such as by providing inclusive banking, advocating for small businesses that create social impact, and supporting community causes. With this additional S$100 million commitment, we will be able to ramp up efforts to create social good, and help pave the way for a more equitable world,” Piyush Gupta, chief executive officer at DBS Bank, said.

“We look forward to creating greater collective impact by going beyond empowering businesses-for-impact to also working with the community at large, with a focus on education, [the] elderly and the environment,” Euleen Goh, chairman of DBS Foundation, said.

Against a backdrop of COVID-19 with its associated financial and economic turmoil worldwide, the bank is also seeking to address low financial literacy, digital inequality, the social-economic implications of Asia’s ageing population, and food waste. “One third of the food produced globally is either lost or wasted, and over half of this happens in Asia, where more than half of the world’s undernourished people reside,” according to a statement from the bank.

Via its S$10.5 million DBS Stronger Together fund, the bank provided 4.5 million meals, care packs and medical supplies, to help communities hard hit by COVID-19 in 2020, while in 2021, it donated 1,000 oxygen concentrators to Indonesia, three cryogenic oxygen tanks and 300 oxygen concentrators to India, the bank said.

The bank is not without its problems. On Friday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore increased the bank’s capital requirement by S$930 million as retribution for the widespread unavailability of the lender's digital banking services in November 2021, according to S&P Global.