ASEAN banking: Singapore versus the rest

When considering the financial sector, there's the developed, global financial hub of Singapore and then there's the rest of ASEAN. The city-state dominates sectors including wealth management; local champion DBS Bank is Southeast Asia’s largest lender by assets. 

This is reflected in our chart of banking assets as proportion of GDP. At more than 500%, Singapore's ratio doubles that of Malaysia. The rest of the ASEAN-6 have banking metrics more typical of emerging markets: Indonesia is ASEAN's largest economy but has relatively small banking assets. 

The maturity of Singapore's banking sector also reflects the strength of competition and the stability of the economy; that means lending margins are less profitable, but there is less need for large capital buffers than banks in other ASEAN economies. (Bad loan levels are even smaller than those seen at US banks.) 

CEIC users can click through for more charts that demonstrate how ASEAN Premium easily enables cross-national comparisons – from capital adequacy ratios to non-performing loans – and take a deep dive into Philippine credit-card debt, Malaysian bank liquidity and more. 

If you are a CEIC user, access the story here.