Karen Ngui, Head of DBS Foundation, talks about its work with social enterprises, community partners and vulnerable communities in India, and its growing focus on financial inclusion, livelihoods and ageing.
DBS Foundation works to improve the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities across Asia, including India. Its work spans supporting Businesses for Impact that address social and environmental challenges, enabling access to essential needs such as healthcare and education, and advancing financial inclusion through financial and digital literacy programmes.
The Foundation is also reshaping the narrative around ageing, looking at how longer lives can be accompanied by opportunities for participation, contribution, and purpose.
In this conversation, Karen Ngui, Head of DBS Foundation, discusses the Foundation’s work in India, its partnerships with organisations on the ground, and its approach to creating sustainable, scalable social impact.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
SocialStory (SS): You’ve been with DBS for over two decades. Could you take us through how the DBS Foundation has evolved since it was set up in 2014?
Karen Ngui (KN): I joined DBS 21 years ago. What attracted me was its unique lineage. DBS was the largest Singaporean bank, and since then, we have grown from strength to strength. Another attraction of joining DBS was its unique lineage. DBS started as an offshoot of Singapore’s Economic Development Board, so the bank has always had a distinctive purpose-driven heritage.
We were formed to help Singapore develop. Beyond the commercial aspects of banking, our purpose was to help businesses and individuals develop and thrive in Singapore. Subsequently, we grew across the region.
Realising that we are in Asia, of Asia and for Asia was very attractive because it reinforced the idea that banking is ultimately about enabling people to live better lives.
Given our purpose-driven roots, the opportunity came up almost 10 years later, in 2014, to set up the DBS Foundation. We wanted to set aside a predetermined amount to create social impact. That was when we received an injection of SGD 50 million.
When COVID hit in 2020, we decided to support communities at large, in addition to supporting social enterprises.
While we continue to nurture businesses for impact, our mandate has broadened. We also work with community and government partners to strengthen the social and financial resilience of vulnerable communities. Our focus is on uplifting the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities in Asia, predominantly across our six key markets: Singapore, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. These programmes benefit communities directly, rather than indirectly through supporting businesses or social enterprises. That is why we have always had this dual approach, or what I call the twin engines of the DBS Foundation.
As the DBS Foundation turned 10 in 2014, the DBS Bank Board decided to double down on its commitment to delivering social impact. We committed to giving back up to SGD 1 billion over the next 10 years. That works out to about SGD 100 million a year.
We have also committed 1.5 million employee volunteer hours.
SS: Could you outline some of the key programmes that the DBS Foundation is working on in India, the impact so far, and your vision for the future?
KN: If we go back to social resilience and financial resilience, as well as our original focus on supporting businesses for impact and social enterprises, I can look at it chronologically.
One of the social enterprises is Phool, founded by social entrepreneur Ankit Agarwal. We got to know Ankit more than a decade ago, and we have seen how he has enabled change in the communities of women he works with. He has been innovative in creating employment opportunities for women while reducing pollution by recycling and upcycling temple flowers into incense sticks. It is about creating systemic change.
Another example is Haqdarshak, founded by Aniket Doegar. Haqdarshak focuses on unlocking access to government programmes and schemes so more people can benefit. Over the years, I believe it has benefitted more than half a million individuals, including women entrepreneurs in villages.
A third programme is our work with The/Nudge Institute, where we are working to uplift the skills and employability of people across around 85,000 households in certain parts of India. We work with Sampark Foundation, which focuses on education for underprivileged children. Through this partnership, we aim to benefit more than 500,000 schoolchildren.
SS: What is your view on catalytic capital, particularly in a country like India with such a diverse population and demographic profile? Why should foundations such as yours focus more on catalytic capital for long-term gains?
KN: It is important to focus on catalytic capital. When we support businesses for impact, we provide grants and awards. That is where the catalytic capital aspect comes in, helping businesses grow and scale so that they can become engines of change and forces for good. The other aspect is more philanthropic. This is where we partner with organisations such as The/Nudge Institute and Haqdarshak to fund and support their programmes.
At DBS, we talk about “doing well by doing good”. There are opportunities to create sustainable businesses and generate returns, which can then be reinvested. That is the underlying social enterprise model.
Doing well by doing good remains central to DBS Foundation's approach to creating social impact.
One of our grantees in India is Life Circle Health Services, an inaugural winner of our DBS Foundation Impact Beyond Award. Life Circle trains caregivers, particularly young people in villages, giving them the skills they need to become caregivers. In doing so, these young people gain skills, livelihoods, and incomes, while the older generation can age in place with hope and dignity.
This is also a form of catalytic capital because, as Life Circle has shared with us, the support helps unlock opportunities to attract other forms of capital from other organisations. It is encouraging to see that our support has helped galvanise additional capital.
SS: The government itself is focusing on skilling young people in caregiving because there is significant potential, both in India and overseas…
KN: The default thinking around ageing today is very much about aged care, which is, of course, very important. We should rather take a broader, more holistic approach and ask: How do we enable societies to live longer, better and more fulfilling lives? That requires early intervention, early preparation, and a broader, more holistic lens on ageing. Beyond physical health, it is also about social, emotional, and financial health.
With advances in modern medicine and the way we live, we are privileged to live longer. But are we equipped to live longer? The sooner we start preparing, the better.
That is what we mean by longevity and demographic shifts. We don't want to narrow the conversation to aged care, although that is a very important part of it. The more people are prepared for longer lives, the better shape we will all be in when we eventually become older.
SS: This also ties in with building resilience, both social and financial…
KN: One thing we have learned in building resilience is the importance of agency.
It is about equipping individuals to take charge of their own lives, financially, physically, and mentally. Whether through access to essential needs, skills training or financial literacy, our aim is to help people build the capability and confidence to make informed choices about their future.
We believe that the more we can equip vulnerable communities to adapt and create new opportunities, the better current and future generations can live than past ones.
It is not just about giving people fish, but teaching them how to fish, and how to fish more productively, so that their lives can be better.
That is why we talk about social resilience and access to essential needs such as food, education, and shelter. If you don't have day-to-day stability, you cannot really start thinking about a better tomorrow. Resilience goes beyond providing support. It is about enabling people to shape better outcomes for themselves.
SS: You work with several partners and organisations. Why is this collaborative approach important for creating scalable social impact?
KN: In India, I have personally learned a lot from our partners because the social impact sector is very well developed. India deserves huge kudos for what the country has been doing, and must continue to do, given its sheer population size. No single sector can do this alone.
We have a rigorous process for defining programme elements, including the expected outputs and outcomes. We recognise that some measures take longer to realise, but we still need proof that things are moving in the right direction.
The measures go beyond how many people we reach. Sometimes, creating meaningful change requires going deep rather than wide.
It varies from programme to programme, but the key thing is that the programme is co-created with the partner. We make sure we find like-minded partners with shared values, agree on the process, desired outputs, and outcomes upfront, and then work together to deliver them.
SS: What role does the DBS Foundation see itself playing in driving lasting and scalable social impact?
KN: DBS Foundation is about championing strategic philanthropy. Our role goes beyond providing funding. We bring together the expertise and partnerships needed to catalyse meaningful, lasting change.
We give back, but we also build forward. If you look at the businesses we support, it is about enabling innovative business models that can create sustainable impact. The community programmes we support focus on equipping beneficiaries with the skills, resources, and opportunities to build better futures. So, it is about building forward.
We co-create solutions and interventions with our partners, each designed with a clear purpose and measurable outcomes.
Our ambition is to help catalyse systemic, sustainable and scalable change. That means looking beyond individual programmes and working with partners across the ecosystem to create impact that endures and grows over time. Governments, businesses, social enterprises, NGOs and communities all have a role to play. Our role is to bring together capital, capabilities, networks and like-minded partners so that, collectively, we can help improve quality of life and expand opportunities for vulnerable communities.
As featured in YourStory (Social Story)
World’s Best Bank 2025, 2021, 2019, Euromoney
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World’s Best Bank for Corporate Responsibility 2025, 2023, Euromoney
Asia’s Safest Bank, 2009 – 2026, Global Finance
Best Bank in the World 2022, Global Finance
India’s Best International Bank 2021, Asiamoney
World’s Best Banks - #1 in India 2021, Forbes
World’s Safest Commercial Bank 2021, Global Finance
