DBS Bank is expanding its commodity trade finance business in London by hiring a team of specialists from Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander. The new hires will be joining the bank over the coming months.

The new team is led by Chris Edwards, and will be working with the existing team led by Stewart Boyd.

DBS is headquartered in Singapore, and it is one of the largest financial services groups in Asia with operations in 15 markets. It is also the largest bank in Singapore as measured by assets.

In February, Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander announced it was exiting the asset finance and commodity trade finance, and made a number of structural changes within the bank. The announcement followed Kaupthing's acquisition of Singer & Friedlander in 2005.

The bank is now focusing on providing financial services to small and medium-sized businesses and high net worth individuals through its five core business segments: banking, investment banking treasury, capital markets and asset management and private banking.

Asset finance and commodity trade finance had been non-core to Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander and had been operating mainly on standalone basis. By exiting this market, the bank aims to free up liquidity of over € 1.3bn and this will be reinvested to grow its core UK business.