DBS Deploys Agentic AI to Automate Credit Assessments for 1,500 Corporate Bankers

DBS has launched a sophisticated agentic AI solution designed to automate the preparation of complex credit assessments for corporate clients. By transforming raw data into review-ready drafts, the bank aims to significantly reduce the administrative burden on relationship managers, allowing them to prioritise strategic client engagement and risk calibration over manual documentation.

What was announced

DBS has officially rolled out an agentic AI capability to approximately 1,500 employees globally following a successful pilot phase involving 150 participants. The solution is specifically engineered for relationship managers and credit risk managers who handle large and mid-sized corporate clients. It utilizes specialized AI agents capable of executing more than 70 distinct tasks to synthesize structured and unstructured data—including annual reports, internal records, and industry research—into a comprehensive first draft of a credit memo.

The primary objective of this deployment is to address the labor-intensive nature of due diligence. Currently, preparing credit memos and related activities can consume up to 40% of a relationship manager's time. DBS aims to reduce this time expenditure by at least 30%. The workflow allows human managers to iterate with the AI agents, refining the initial drafts by incorporating specific client knowledge, business context, and industry expertise. This collaborative approach ensures that while the AI handles the heavy lifting of data synthesis, the final risk analysis remains anchored in human judgment and strategic oversight.

This rollout follows a broader institutional push toward agentic AI at DBS. The bank recently integrated similar enhancements into its virtual assistants, DBS Joy and DBS digibot, which serve a customer base of 10 million across Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The credit memo solution represents the extension of this technology into the high-stakes environment of institutional banking and risk management.

"We believe that agentic AI can help to reimagine corporate banking. Through this capability, we have been able to capture the knowledge and insight of our best relationship managers and credit risk managers, turning these into a solution which enables us to level up the quality of our credit analysis at scale. This in turn helps our relationship managers to pivot their time and focus on partnering with our clients to drive growth for their business and for our credit risk managers to proactively manage risks."

Han Kwee Juan, Group Head of Institutional Banking, DBS.

The companies involved

DBS Bank is a leading financial services group in Asia with a significant presence in Southeast Asia, Greater China, and South Asia. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, the bank has positioned itself as a digital frontrunner in the global banking landscape. It operates across multiple segments, including consumer banking, wealth management, and institutional banking, serving a diverse range of clients from individual retail customers to large multinational corporations.

The bank’s institutional banking arm, led by Han Kwee Juan, Group Executive, Group Head of Institutional Bank at DBS Bank, is central to its corporate strategy. DBS has consistently invested in emerging technologies to maintain its competitive edge in the Asian markets. The bank’s current strategy focuses on becoming an "AI-enabled bank," a vision that seeks to integrate artificial intelligence across both customer-facing interfaces and internal back-office operations. By automating the credit assessment process, DBS is reinforcing its position as a market leader in digital transformation, moving beyond simple chatbots toward sophisticated agentic systems that handle complex financial logic and multi-step analytical tasks.

What this means

This move signals a shift in the "AI arms race" from generic generative tools to specialized agentic workflows. By targeting the credit memo—a document that is notoriously time-consuming yet critical for bank safety—DBS is tackling a major bottleneck in corporate lending. If the bank successfully reclaims 30% of its managers' time, it gains a massive competitive advantage in deal velocity and client service levels. Other regional giants in Singapore and Hong Kong will now be under immense pressure to demonstrate similar efficiency gains. The focus for the industry now shifts to whether these AI-generated drafts can maintain the same level of skepticism and nuance as a human-led process during a market downturn. Watch for whether DBS expands this to smaller SME lending, where the volume of assessments is even higher.