CEOs of Singapore’s three largest local banks topped bank CEO remuneration ranking

Piyush Gupta, Samuel N. Tsien, and Wee Ee Cheong from DBS, OCBC and UOB were among the highest paid bank chiefs in the Asia Pacific region in 2017, and their performance-based remuneration as a percentage of total pay were also the highest. All three CEOs saw their total remuneration decline in 2016 as bank profits were significantly affected by higher allowances for bad loans from its oil and gas loans, but their pay all rose in 2017. The 23% jump in Piyush Gupta’s pay is mainly driven by DBS’s comprehensive digital strategy, as well as the integration of ANZ’s retail and wealth franchise across five markets and the launch of digibank in Indonesia.

The Australian banks had five of the top ten highest-paid bank chief executives in Asia Pacific, but none of them made top 5, which can be partially due to the exchange rate changes. Public Bank’s Managing Director Tay Ah Lek and Bank of East Asia’s Chairman and Chief Executive David LI Kwok-po ranked the fourth and fifth, respectively. The total remuneration of Tay Ah Lek doubled between 2014 and 2017, and thus he earned 216.5 times average staff expenses last year. Meanwhile, no chief executives from Chinese banks made it into the list of top 30 highest-paid bank chief executives in the region.