RaoscaffResearch
Prediction Series · Lock · Issue P-260
Prediction Series · P-260

First Singapore lock — and a comparison, not a number we made up.

90% probability DBS Group's FY2026 total income exceeds its 2025 total income. The bank upgraded that guidance from 'around 2025 levels' after a record second quarter, even as net interest income fell 2% on an 18 basis point margin squeeze.

Type · Prediction Lock · relative comparison, banking Locked · 2026-09-02 · before the FY2026 result Resolves · ~2027-02-10 · DBS Group FY2026 results (dbs.com) Scored · binary: FY2026 TOTAL INCOME > FY2025 TOTAL INCOME yes/no
DBS FY2026 total income · our locked call
> FY2025
full-year total income versus the prior year

DBS Group reported a record second-quarter 2026 profit, up 9%, and declared S$0.81 in total dividends for the quarter. Group net interest income declined 2% year-on-year to S$3.58bn as net interest margin narrowed 18 basis points to 1.87% on lower interest rates. The bank raised full-year 2026 guidance: total income is now expected to EXCEED 2025 levels, against earlier guidance for total income to be around 2025 levels, and group net interest income is now expected to close the gap to 2025 levels as rate headwinds are mitigated by hedging and balance sheet growth. Rates are assumed to remain at current levels with deposit growth in the high single digits. Source: DBS Group Q2 2026 results, 6 August 2026.

— 1 · The Locked Call

DBS's FY2026 total income exceeds its FY2025 total income — P = 0.90.

We lock a binary: DBS Group's reported total income for full-year 2026 is greater than its reported total income for full-year 2025. Confidence 90%.

This is a relative comparison rather than a threshold in Singapore dollars, and that is deliberate.

— 2 · Why a comparison instead of a number

We could not verify DBS's 2025 total income to this series' standard. So we did not invent a threshold around it.

Every other lock in this tranche names a figure. This one does not, because the honest position is that we could not independently confirm DBS's full-year 2025 total income to the standard the series requires before setting a threshold against it. The choice at that point is between guessing a plausible-looking number and locking something we can actually stand behind.

DBS itself provided the answer. Its upgraded guidance is expressed as a comparison — full-year total income will exceed 2025 levels, revised up from around 2025 levels — so we lock exactly that. The claim is fully falsifiable from a single published table in the FY2026 results, where both years appear side by side, and it requires no figure we could not check. A fabricated threshold would have looked more precise and been worth less.

The banking substance is genuinely interesting. Net interest income fell 2% as the margin compressed 18 basis points on lower rates, which is the headwind every bank faces in a cutting cycle. DBS is guiding total income higher anyway, on hedging, balance sheet growth and non-interest income — fees, treasury and wealth. That is the test: whether a bank can grow the top line while its core spread business shrinks.

The residual 10% is a faster rate decline than the current-levels assumption allows, or a markets-dependent quarter going against the non-interest lines that are doing the offsetting work.

Locked on 2026-09-02 — scored against DBS's reported FY2026 total income versus FY2025.

RAOSCAFF locks P-260 on 2026-09-02, before the FY2026 result. Scored against total income as reported by DBS Group for the twelve months to 31 December 2026, compared with the same line for 2025.

Locked
2026-09-02 (commit timestamp on origin/main)
Resolves
~2027-02-10 — DBS Group Holdings FY2026 results
Source
DBS Group Holdings Ltd FY2026 results, GROUP TOTAL INCOME in Singapore dollars (dbs.com investor relations)
Scored by
Binary: YES if reported FY2026 GROUP TOTAL INCOME is GREATER THAN reported FY2025 group total income, both as presented in the FY2026 results; NO if equal or lower. Total income — NOT net interest income alone (which fell 2% year-on-year in Q2 2026), NOT net profit, NOT return on equity, and NOT a single business segment. If 2025 is restated in the FY2026 accounts, the restated comparative as printed alongside the 2026 figure governs, since that is the comparison the company itself presents.

The bank guided a comparison, so we locked a comparison. Inventing a Singapore-dollar threshold around a 2025 base we could not verify would have looked more precise and been worth less.