Turning 40 in 2001, Piyush Gupta decided to leave banking and take the entrepreneurial plunge.</p> “It was the height of the dot.com boom,” he explains. “Everyone was caught up with Internet fever, and it seemed like India could do with another portal. Together with a number of partners, I set up Go4i.com along with the Hindustan Times.”</p> While the outcome of his venture was not what Gupta was hoping for - just five weeks later, the dot.com bubble burst and money from venture capitalist firms dried up – the experience had a profound effect on him.</p> Now the chief executive officer of DBS Bank, he reflects: “It freed me of my inhibitions. It took me off the treadmill - it created a sort of freedom in my thinking process and my decision-making that I did not have before.”</p> The disruption Internet 1.0 had on Gupta’s life however – both good and bad – was not equally reflected in the banking sector, where it barely made a dent. Yet just over ten years on, the reality could not be more different.</p> “Whether we know it or not,” he says, “the digital revolution has put banks under siege. With Internet 2.0 and mobility, the game has been re-defined. Banks in Asia are on a burning platform of competition from mobile and internet companies. If we don’t embrace digital – and quickly – there is a real danger that our lunch will be eaten.”</p> Yet there is a silver lining: “The good news is that I don’t believe any bank in Asia has had massive success around digital banking. This gives us a window to turn challenge into opportunity.”</p> Gupta is also encouraged by the early successes he has overseen at DBS.</p> In May 2014, the bank launched DBS PayLah!, an app that allows customers to easily transfer funds via their mobile phone simply using the payee’s mobile number.</p> Just six weeks after its launch, over 150,000 users propelled DBS PayLah! to the top spot among finance apps in the Singapore iTunes store.</p> DBS HomeConnect, a mobile app launched in 2013 allowing homebuyers to find out the valuation of a property just by pointing their mobile device at it, has also proven popular with customers. The bank’s pioneering mobile technology has even earned it the title of world’s best for mobile apps by Swiss research firm MyPrivateBanking for two years in a row.</p> And the innovation does not stop there. In 2014, DBS announced a partnership with IBM to use artificial intelligence to better provide wealth advice to high-net worth clients. The bank also inked a partnership with Singapore’s A*Star’s Institute for Infocomm Research, involving the establishment of a joint lab to conduct new research in data analytics, mobile technology, social platforms and other cutting-edge technologies.</p> According to Gupta, the key to change – aside from putting your money where your mouth is - is one of mindset: “We have to shift from legacy to new ways of engagement,” he says.</p> “Banks have been too distracted over the last five years to act on the threat facing us. As an industry, we’ve been sidetracked by issues such as capital, liquidity and the global financial crisis. This has allowed our non-bank competitors to take advantage of our absence and gain a headstart.”</p> However, the outlook is not all doom and gloom, and the shifting landscape presents opportunities for innovators. But time is of the essence.</p> “After all,” says Gupta. “My firm belief is that in the future, people won’t need a bank as such, rather they will need banking.”</p> Join us in Singapore to hear more from Mr Piyush Gupta about his fascinating journey on Monday 12th October.</p>