By Ignatius Low, Money Editor

SINGAPORE'S largest bank is making big changes to the way it sells investments to customers, as it continues to battle criticism over losses suffered by those who put money into its High Notes 5 product.

DBS Bank plans to ask more detailed questions about a customer's background and how he got the money he is investing. And it will turn away those who are not suitable for a product, even if they insist on buying it.

'We have learnt something from this and I believe that we will do things differently. Not all of it is going to be popular,' said DBS chairman Koh Boon Hwee in an interview with The Straits Times.

We've taken a hit, but we will overcome

THE financial landscape has changed irrevocably and things will never be the same again.

That is the first thing DBS chairman Koh Boon Hwee tells you as he starts speaking, and it is a line he will repeat at least 10 times over the next hour.

He wants you to remember it, because it will dictate the bank's strategy going into the global economic downturn and the way it deals with customers and staff in future.

DBS prefers to promote from within

THE days of DBS flying in all sorts of outside talent to be its top brass are over, says bank chairman Koh Boon Hwee.

Instead, it now prefers to promote from within its ranks and move its brightest people from department to department.

'If you look at the people in the key positions now, they have all been with the bank for a good part of their career and we have successfully rotated them from one job to another so that they actually understand the whole bank better,' he notes.

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