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The Monetary Authority of Singapore said the outage was “unacceptable” and the lender had “fallen short of expectations.”
The central bank said it will gather the “necessary facts” before taking suitable action.
DBS’ digital services were disrupted from about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning to 5:45 p.m. Users were not able to access online banking services or make trades via its brokerage.

A DBS Group Holdings Ltd. logo atop an automated teller machine (ATM) at a bank branch in Singapore, on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021.
Lauryn Ishak | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SINGAPORE — Shares of Southeast Asia’s largest bank DBS Group were down 1.4% on Thursday, a day after a 10-hour outage of its digital services.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore said the outage was “unacceptable” and the lender had “fallen short of expectations.”

DBS was the largest loser in terms of index points on Singapore’s benchmark Straits Times Index on Thursday.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, MAS said it instructed DBS to “conduct a thorough investigation to establish the root cause of the disruption and submit its investigation findings to MAS.”
The central bank said it will gather the “necessary facts” before taking suitable action.
DBS’ digital services were disrupted from about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning to 5:45 p.m. Users were not able to access online banking services or make trades via its brokerage.
Late Wednesday, the bank then announced it would extend banking services at all its branches by two hours.

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DBS sought to assure its customers that its systems were not compromised and clients’ deposits were safe.
In a statement on Wednesday, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta said the bank was “disappointed” with the incident, and added: “We hold ourselves to higher standards and it is our utmost priority to review the events of today.”
In November 2021, MAS imposed additional capital requirements on DBS after the bank’s digital banking services were disrupted for two days.
DBS had to apply a multiplier of 1.5 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk, which translated to 930 million Singapore dollars ($700 million) in additional regulatory capital.
It will “not be surprising” if MAS imposed a similar penalty on DBS for Wednesday’s outage, said Chong Beng Soon, associate professor at Nanyang Technological University’s college of business.
However, he doesn’t expect the incident to significantly impact consumer or investor confidence in the bank in the long run, he told CNBC.
The lender’s “strong banking franchise and reputation” will enable it to withstand any negative effect from this incident, he added. More

Chinese Premier Li Qiang claimed China had acted “responsibly” in its role as a big country, and generally contributed to world peace.
His speech of about 25 minutes at the Boao Forum for Asia did not delve into China’s heightened tensions with the U.S.

China’s Premier Li Qiang addressed an international audience at Boao Asia forum in Boao, Hainan on March 30, 2023.
Lintao Zhang | Getty Images News | Getty Images

BO’AO, China — Chinese Premier Li Qiang sought to rally Asian countries behind China in his first public address to an international audience as premier.
On Wednesday, Li claimed that China had acted “responsibly” in its role as a big country, and generally contributed to world peace.

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“Peace is the prerequisite for development,” Li said in Mandarin translated by CNBC.
His speech of about 25 minutes at the Boao Forum for Asia did not delve into China’s heightened tensions with the U.S.
The annual meeting, hosted by China, is seen by some as the region’s answer to the World Economic Forum’s gathering of global leaders every year in Davos, Switzerland.
Asia and the world are at the “crossroads” of history, Li said, while portraying China as a center of stability.
He referenced China’s ruling Communist Party’s congressional meeting in the fall, and its goal of “national rejuvenation” claiming the country’s “great contributions” to the world were “rapid economic growth” and “social stability.”

Li, who was confirmed as premier in March, said China’s development going forward would bring “strong momentum to the economic growth of Asia.”

China’s domestic economy

On China’s domestic economic outlook, Li said the situation in March would be better than in the first two months of the year.
China reported economic figures for January and February that showed a modest recovery from last year’s Covid impact.
In January, the country relaxed its border controls after nearly three years of strict Covid-zero restrictions.

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The new premier said Thursday that China will work to expand its domestic market and improve the business environment. He reiterated a government pledge to firmly prevent financial systemic risks.
Li met with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during the forum, according to state media.
His speech comes as China went on a charm offensive this month to retain and attract investment from foreign businesses.

Meetings with Apple, ASML

Notably, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Beijing. State announcement said he was among several executives who met with Li on Monday at the close of a government-organized conference, the China Development Forum.
Cook also met with Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planning agency.

China “hopes Apple will continue to actively bear a company’s social responsibilities, strengthen protection of data and personal information,” the commission’s readout of the meeting said in Chinese, according to a CNBC translation.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that its minister Wang Wentao met Tuesday with ASML President and CEO Peter Wennink.
The Dutch company is one of the world’s most critical semiconductor firms. The U.S. is trying to stop ASML from exporting advanced chip technology to China in a bid to maintain U.S. advantage in key technology. More

Ask an investor to describe the outlook for commercial property and you will get a colourful response. “Office is a dumpster fire,” says Daniel McNamara of Polpo, an investment fund. His view of the wider market, which includes shops and warehouses, is only a little less grim: “It really is the perfect storm.” Tom Capasse of Waterfall Asset Management, a debt-investment firm, has nicknamed places where the tech bubble has burst, including San Francisco and Seattle, “office hell.” A combination of nasty events has produced this hellish-perfect-dumpster-fire-storm. The lingering impact of covid-19, which kept shoppers away from malls and workers at home, has undermined the value of shopping centres and offices; all real-estate valuations are undermined by higher interest rates, which push up landlords’ expenses. These woes have been added to by the recent banking turmoil and fears of a recession in which workers are laid off and their former employers downsize. The situation poses a problem for two big, intertwined American industries. The first is property, where owners are grappling with the idea that the office buildings they own—uncomfortably empty and unlikely to fill up again—might only be worth half what they paid for them. The second is their financiers. When Brookfield, an asset manager, recently decided it would be better off handing over the keys of two vast office towers in Los Angeles, rather than refinancing the $784m of loans it owed on them, it handed the keys over to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, two big banks.No commercial-property sector looks insulated. “Even in warehousing you have seen firms like Amazon admit they overspent and overbuilt,” says Mr McNamara. But the real concern is office space, which makes up around a quarter of total commercial property (and its debts) in America, because “it is not a cyclical issue”.Vacancy rates have risen in all but the best offices. Landlords are offering generous incentives to lure skittish tenants. In San Francisco more than 29% of offices are empty, nearly eight times the pre-pandemic level. Asking rents in the city, which has seen the biggest jump in vacancies across America, are down by 15% compared with 2019. As these buildings can have high costs to run, in part owing to property taxes, even a small dip in rents or occupancy can turn a building into a lossmaker. Landlords may be unable, or unwilling, to hang on to these properties. They may be unable if they cannot roll over their loans. Around 15% of outstanding commercial-property debts across all lender types in America are maturing this year, reports Kevin Fagan of Moody’s Analytics, a research firm. Of these, he thinks about 40% might have trouble refinancing. Landlords may be unwilling if the buildings involved are clearly worth less than the value of the loan. There are examples of “bigger sponsors pre-emptively giving back the keys even a year before loans were due to expire,” notes Mr Capasse.At the end of 2022, the commercial-property industry owed $5.6trn in debt to investors and financial institutions. According to Trepp, a data provider, half of this was to banks. Brookfield and funds of its size might need to repay big institutions, but the vast majority are on the hook to outfits with less than $250bn in assets—ones which are already under severe stress after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.Banks will end up responsible for lots of offices, which they will likely have to sell at deep discounts. This will bring back memories of the global financial crisis of 2007-09. But there are reasons to think history is not about to repeat itself. First, commercial property is worth just half as much as residential real estate, which is where problems began last time around. Second, lax lending saw banks grant mortgages worth as much as 100% of a home’s value before the financial crisis. Commercial-property lenders offer a borrower a maximum 75% mortgage, meaning prices will have to fall much further for banks to face losses. Even the worst-case scenario would have limited impact. Roughly a quarter of the $2.2trn of commercial-property loans owed to small banks are office loans. Imagine that landlords hand back the keys on half these loans this year—some $280bn in total. If banks could recover just half the value of these loans by selling off the assets at deep discounts (say, a third of their value three years ago) they would be wearing losses of $140bn. That is just 10% of the equity capital that small banks hold. The blow would be unevenly distributed, however, and could imperil some institutions.The office apocalypseThere remains the question of what happens to buildings no one wants to work in anymore. Many offices already need sprucing up. And building costs are sky-high, thanks to material and labour shortages, as well as new laws around the world which seek to make buildings greener. Energy-efficiency rules in England and Wales, for example, will make it unlawful to let one in twelve buildings in London from April 1st, unless landlords upgrade them. Ryan Williams of Cadre, a property-investment platform, foresees two paths. The first is a “fundamental repricing, where the banks take back the keys and sell assets at a huge discount”. This might allow new buyers to adapt, upgrading or maintaining buildings so that they suit lower occupancies. In the second, local officials step in: “It is not in the interest of [many cities] to see a whole street of lower-tier office buildings become blighted, so governments may start to offer incentives to renovate or convert.” This kind of adaptation is already happening in places. Look out the windows of The Economist’s office in Washington and on any given weekday a handful of builders are busy converting the old Vanguard building, an office that once housed the Peace Corps, into a block of shiny new apartments. ■ More

A view of a Canadian athletic apparel retailer Lululemon logo seen at one of their stores.
Alex Tai | LightRocket | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading Wednesday.
Lululemon – Shares of the athleticwear company soared more than 13% after the firm reported strong holiday-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. Lululemon also issued upbeat guidance for its new fiscal year.

Micron Technology — The semiconductor manufacturer added 5.3% after management said it was planning a bigger headcount reduction than previously expected. That helped investors overlook Micron’s misses on both the top and bottom lines, according to Refinitiv. The company reported a loss of $1.91 per share, larger than the loss of 86 cents per share anticipated. Revenue came in at $3.69 billion, slightly lower than the $3.71 billion expected.
Carnival — Shares gained 3.6% after being upgraded by Susquehanna to positive from neutral. The Wall Street firm said it sees EBITDA recovery for the cruise operator into 2024. The move comes a day after the stock gained 6.1% following an upgrade by Wells Fargo to equal weight from underweight.
UBS — U.S.-listed shares of the European bank rose 4.2% after UBS announced that former CEO Sergio Ermotti would return to help the bank manage the acquisition of Credit Suisse. Ermotti previously helped restructure UBS in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Emergent BioSolutions — Shares of Emergent BioSolutions added 3.8% after the FDA approved over-the-counter sales of the company’s Narcan nasal spray, used to treat opioid overdoses.
Lucid — The electric vehicle maker declined 2.5%, a day after a report from Insider detailed news of roughly 1,300 planned layoffs at the company, which equates to roughly 18% of its workforce.

Cal-Maine Foods — The egg producer and distributor’s stock jumped more than 10% on the back of a stronger-than-expected report for the company’s fiscal third quarter. Cal-Maine Foods’ year-over-year profit also jumped more than 700% thanks in part to a surge in egg prices.
Urban Outfitters, Burlington Stores, Foot Locker, Ross Stores — Shares of major retailers declined Wednesday after UBS downgraded the group to sell from neutral. UBS said it sees at least 23% downside to its price targets for each of the companies as a slowdown in consumer spending curbs the industry’s earnings prospects. Shares of Urban Outfitters and Burlington were down about 2.7% and 4.5%, respectively. Ross Stores slid 0.9%, and Foot Locker was down 1.3%.
Bath & Body Works — The home care and fragrances retailer fell more than 2% after a UBS downgrade, saying it expects a recessionary environment to weigh on the stock this year and next. UBS said it sees many of the company’s products as discretionary and that consumers “will choose to spend less in a challenging macro environment” on them.
Dave & Buster’s — The restaurant and arcade operator’s stock rose 1.5% after the company’s fourth-quarter results beat expectations. Dave & Buster’s also announced an up to $100 million share repurchase program.
Petco — Shares of the pet health and wellness company gained 5% after CEO & Chairman Ron Coughlin disclosed a 61,000 share purchase.
Newmark Group — Newmark Group’s stock gained 7% amid news that the FDIC hired the commercial real estate services firm to sell roughly $60 billion worth of Signature Bank’s loans.
Energy stocks — Energy stocks rose as oil prices gained for a third day. Shares of Devon Energy and SLB were last up more than 1% each, along with Phillips 66, EOG Resources, Marathon Oil and ConocoPhillips.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Michelle Fox, Jesse Pound, Yun Li, Brian Evans, Tanaya Macheel and Pia Singh contributed reporting More