Coronavirus: DBS Bank evacuates 300 as staffer tests positive

DBS evacuated 300 employees from Tower 3 of Singapore’s Marina Bay Finance Centre, after an employee tested positive for coronavirus. It comes as banks across the region re-examine worst-case scenarios as the pathogen spreads.

People enter Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, where DBS headquarters is situated in Singapore, on Wednesday

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DBS Bank is the first lender directly to be impacted by the growing threat from coronavirus.

On Wednesday, the Singapore-based lender said a staff member tested the previous day was infected with the pathogen.

On the stroke of noon, all 300 employees working on floor 43 of Marina Bay Finance Centre’s (MBFC) Tower 3 were told to vacate the premises, and work from home.

In a statement issued to the media, DBS said it was “conducting detailed contact tracing with all employees and other parties that the infected employee may have come into contact with”.

Most of the bank’s senior executives, including CEO Piyush Gupta, work extremely close by, on floors 45 and 46, and share the same set of elevators as the afflicted individual.

In accordance with its business continuity plans (BCP) and health...

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