What your front-office salary and bonus should be at DBS in Singapore

If you want to work for a local bank in Singapore and be well rewarded for your efforts, DBS might be your best choice of employer. Staff costs per head at DBS – total employee expenditure (such as salaries and bonuses) divided by total headcount – went up by an inflation-busting 6% year on year to reach S$32,299 for the second quarter, according to data calculated from the bank’s latest earnings report.

That’s significantly more than at UOB or OCBC, where average pay last quarter was S$25,124 and S$23,566, respectively. Meanwhile, when DBS’s Q2 numbers are extrapolated on a 12-month basis, they suggests that the bank is now spending more than S$120k annually on its average staff member.

These pay-per-head figures, however, apply across the bank and across geographies. If you want to work for DBS in Singapore in a front-office job within institutional banking (the division that houses corporate finance, advisory, markets, and transaction banking, among other functions), you’ll probably want to have a rough idea of DBS’s pay and bonuses at your level of seniority.

To find out more about front-office institutional banking salaries and bonuses at DBS in Singapore, we looked through pay figures on Glassdoor across the five seniority levels that the website has sufficient data for: analyst, associate, assistant vice president, vice president, and senior vice president.

Pay at DBS obviously varies from employee to employee, so the figures in the table below should be treated as approximate guidance. Moreover, we only reviewed high-range Singapore salaries and cash bonuses at DBS, because they best reflect the (comparatively high) earnings of front-office employees in institutional banking.

DBS declined to comment on its Singapore compensation.

How much will your salary and bonus be at DBS in Singapore?

If you’re an analyst within institutional banking at DBS in Singapore, expect to receive an annual base salary in the region of S$60k, although your exact pay will depend on your specific job function and the number of years you’ve been an analyst. Salaries for front-office associates in the division are about S$90k, while bonuses can reach S$23k, depending on performance, according to the self-reported Glassdoor figures.

Once you reach assistant vice president (AVP) at DBS in Singapore, your total compensation could be approximately S$165k a year, made up of a S$125k salary and a S$40k cash bonus.

It’s at vice president (VP) level, that front-office institutional banking pay shoots up at DBS, the Glassdoor data suggests. VPs can potentially take home S$230k salaries and land S$80k annual bonuses.

For senior vice presidents (SVPs) working in front-office roles, DBS’s Singapore salaries are approximately S$280k, and bonuses are approximately S$120k within its institutional banking division.

Institutional banking salaries and bonuses at DBS in Singapore

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