Piyush Gupta's pay for running DBS climbed by more than one-fifth last year. The Indian-born finance executive is likely to remain Asia's highest-paid banker. 

Last month, Singapore's largest bank was upbeat despite a mere 3 percent rise in full-year profits, saying its digital reinvention would buoy future results, as finews.asia reported. On Wednesday, the Singaporean lender disclosed what it is paying CEO Piyush Gupta for the transformation: S$10.3 million ($7.9 million), compared to S$8.44 million in 2016, according to its annual report.

Not only is the 58-year-old banker's paycheck notably higher, but a major component of it – nearly S$3.9 million – is a cash bonus with no restrictions such as clawback provisions or deferred pay common on Wall Street or the City of London. The bonus represents more than three times Gupta's fixed salary of S$1.2 million. Last year, DBS' stock climbed by 43 percent.

Closer to Swiss

Although pay for United Overseas Bank CEO Wee Ee Cheong and OCBC head Samuel Tsien have yet to be disclosed for 2017, Gupta, who also sits on the bank's board, will almost certainly retain the crown as Asia's highest-paid banker, as finews.asia predicted earlier this month.

Gupta's reading puts him closer to pay hauls of Swiss peers like Credit Suisse's Tidjane Thiam, who earned 9.70 million Swiss francs ($10.26 million) last year. UBS paid long-standing CEO Sergio Ermotti 14.2 million francs last year, making him one of Europe's highest-paid bankers. None of Europe's or Asia's bankers have hit the lofty heights of Wall Street, where Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein took home $24 million for 2017.

Digital Plaudits

DBS' board said it bumped Gupta up a pay grade because of how DBS' digital strategy was received when it was rolled out in detail in November. «This strategy, the way it has been executed, and its impact on the bank’s bottom line as measured by a proprietary model, won widespread plaudits from the analyst and investor community,» the bank said in its annual report.

The Singapore lender also lauded Gupta, a long-time former Citi banker who was poached to lead DBS nine years ago, for integrating the acquisition of Australian bank ANZ’s retail and private bank in Asia as well as rolling out a mobile bank in Indonesia called Digibank.

DBS was also generous with the 18-person top management around Gupta, including private banking head Tan Su Shan and tech boss David Gledhill. There, pay averaged more than S$3.1 million, according to finews.asia calculations.