DBS Group Research on "The Trusted AI Financial Hub: How AI and Trust are Reshaping Global Financial Competition"

Singapore, 20 May 2026 - AI is moving from experimentation into the core infrastructure of finance, shaping areas such as credit decisions, fraud detection, trading, compliance, risk management and customer engagement. The report highlights that in the AI era, financial leadership will increasingly depend on a hub’s ability to combine AI adoption with trusted governance, digital infrastructure and institutional credibility.

The report introduces the concept of the “Trusted AI Financial Hub”: A financial centre that combines deep AI adoption with institutional trust infrastructure robust enough for AI-driven financial decisions to be recognised across institutions and borders.

To assess how hubs are positioned, DBS Group Research developed the inaugural Global AI Financial Hub Index (GAIFHI), a five-pillar framework covering AI integration, trust and governance infrastructure, digital financial infrastructure, talent and innovation and AI-driven market outcomes. (See Pages 18 – 19)

Strength of AI governance and the race to scale trust

The report also introduces the AI Governance Intensity per USD trillion intermediate metric, which measures AI governance strength relative to the scale of financial activity intermediated by a hub.(See Pages 23 – 25)

The analysis spans 15 financial centres and innovation ecosystems, including Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. It evaluates how governance coherence, digital infrastructure, institutional AI adoption, talent depth, market outcomes and capital scale interact to shape competitiveness in the AI era.

How the leading hubs fare

Several findings stand out:

• Singapore emerges as the open-market hub closest to full flywheel activation. Its strengths are regulatory coherence, digital identity infrastructure, institutional AI adoption and international trust. This supports the ESR’s emphasis on sharpening Singapore’s value proposition, becoming a trusted hub for AI solutions and strengthening its role in trusted flows of capital, data and services. (See Page 34)

• New York remains the global capability leader, with unmatched AI depth, talent concentration, capital markets scale and market outcomes. Its constraint is governance fragmentation. Multi-regulator complexity weakens the clarity of its cross-border trust signal. (See Page 33)

• London is repositioning rapidly, supported by a strengthening principles-based AI governance trajectory. Its key constraint remains post-Brexit cross-border recognition. (See Pages 35 – 36)

• San Francisco is anchored by the deepest concentration of AI talent and innovation capacity in the dataset. This capability has translated directly into financial infrastructure innovation. However, with its ecosystem being more innovation-led than intermediation-led, the scale of AI-driven financial activity that can compound into a globally dominant trust signal may be limited. (See Page 33)

Asian financial centres account for the majority of hubs assessed, reflecting the region’s growing influence in digital infrastructure, payments innovation, AI deployment and regulatory agility. Traditional hubs still hold major advantages in capital scale and talent, but the centre of competition is broadening.

In the AI era, financial leadership will not be determined by capital or capability alone. It will depend on which hubs can make AI capability trusted, scalable and internationally recognised.

The full report can be downloaded here.

About DBS
DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 19 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world.

Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named “World’s Best Bank” by Global Finance, “World’s Best Bank” by Euromoney and “Global Bank of the Year” by The Banker. The bank is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney and the world’s “Most Innovative in Digital Banking” by The Banker. In addition, DBS has been accorded the “Safest Bank in Asia“ award by Global Finance for 17 consecutive years from 2009 to 2025.

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