DBS Group <DBSM.SI>, aiming to expand beyond its home base of Singapore, is open to buying Indonesian assets that offer good returns but is not interested for now in Chinese banks where it can only get minority stakes, its chief executive said.

Piyush Gupta, chief executive of Southeast Asia’s largest bank, also told a media briefing in Taipei on Monday that lower interest rates in Singapore were having a negative impact on the group’s net interest income, but not a dramatic one.

 

Gupta, who took over as head of DBS last November, has sought to boost the bank’s presence in southeast Asia where it lags its two Singaporean rivals, United Overseas Bank <UOBH.SI> and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp <OCB.SI>.

 

He told the briefing that Indonesian assets are expensive, but he would consider acquisitions because Indonesia is a “very good return market.”"

 

“Three to four times price/book would be workable,” he said, referring to Indonesian asset valuations.

 

But Chinese banks were not on the acquisition list just now, Gupta said.

 

“We are not interested in buying a stake in a Chinese bank, as long as China only allows minority stakes for foreign banks,” he said.

 

DBS also plans to to raise the capital of its Taiwan unit to T$22 billion ($924 million) in the next year from T$7 billion this year.