Singapore's DBS bank 3Q profit jumps 49 percent

SINGAPORE – Singapore's DBS Group Holdings Ltd. said Friday its third-quarter profit jumped 49 percent thanks to higher fees from stock broking and investment banking.

Southeast Asia's largest bank reported earnings of 563 million Singapore dollars ($403 million) for the three months ended September 30 compared to SG$379 million in the same period a year ago.

Revenue rose 13 percent from a year earlier, the bank said.

"Fee income is at its highest level since the onset of the global financial crisis," DBS Chairman Koh Boon Hwee said in a statement. "DBS is well positioned to take advantage of the nascent economic recovery; we will emerge fitter and stronger."

DBS's new chief executive, Citigroup executive Piyush Gupta, is set to begin next month. DBS's previous CEO, Richard Stanley, died from complications of leukemia in April.