If you’re basking in the glory of your most recent paycheck (and knowing that you still have at least a week ahead of you before you’ll be resigned to eating cai png for the rest of the month), this article’s about to call you poor in a hundred languages.
Just today (9 March), it was revealed via DBS Group’s Annual Report 2022 that Mr Piyush Gupta, the group’s Chief Executive, made $15.4 million in annual earnings for 2022.
What’s that? This just called you poor in a thousand languages? I thought so too.
In the report by DBS, Southeast Asia’s biggest bank, the group’s record profits and return on equity (ROE) were revealed, which also showed that Mr Gupta’s pay rose by 13.2% compared to 2021, when his total compensation was $13.6 million.
It was also an increase from 2020 when his pay fell by 24% to $9.2 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here’s what his pay in 2022 entailed and everything else you need to know about the report.
Piyush Gupta Received a Cash Bonus of $5.77mil
Out of the $15.4 million, Mr Gupta received a salary of $1.5 million, which marked a 25% increase from his salary in 2021.
Mr Gupta also received deferred remuneration in cash and shares of $8.04 million, with the deferred remuneration taking up more than half of the amount.
According to DBS, they opt to pay employees in deferred remuneration as employees can enjoy the company’s successes together, will be motivated to stay in the company and will receive the same benefits as the group’s shareholders.
He was paid in cash for around 17.2% of this part of his earnings and was paid the rest in shares.
And that’s not all.
Mr Gupta also received a cash bonus of $5.77 million, an 11.6% increase from the previous year. (Yes, this might also be a sign to text your boss and ask for a bonus raise.)
Last but not least, Mr Gupta also received a non-cash component of his earnings, which included club, car, and driver benefits worth $80,529.
DBS Net Profit and ROE Increased
Apart from that, DBS previously revealed in February that its net profit increased 20% to $8.19 billion as a result of higher interest rates.
The bank also saw its ROE increase from 12.5% in 2021 to 15% in 2022.
In the report, Mr Gupta and DBS Chairman Peter Seah also noted in their joint letter that 2022 was a “breakout year” for DBS.
The group had managed to deliver “solid financial performance and continued delivery against key scorecard goals” despite difficulties such as high inflation rates, heightened geopolitical tensions and slowing external demand in major markets.
“Although we remain watchful, we take heart that our loan pipeline looks healthy.
“If animal spirits return to markets, we should also see some upside to fee income. Barring any unexpected shocks to the global economy, DBS’ ROE will comfortably be above 15 per cent,” Mr Gupta and Mr Seah added.
As for areas for improvement, Mr Gupta shared in the report that DBS has to continue employing better technology in various areas of the group’s operations.
These areas include cloud computing and site reliability engineering to improve scalability, automation and speed to market.
On the other hand, technology in the form of digitisation has allowed DBS to improve the company over the past five years since it started incorporating digitisation in 2017.
According to Mr Gupta, digitally engaged customers were able to bring in over twice the income on average than those who were not. They have also required fewer financial resources to serve.
Besides that, DBS and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) also worked together to roll out two trial applications last year.
One application was to trade tokenised assets, while the other involved the distribution of purpose-bound vouchers through programmable money and retail central bank digital currencies.