The Singapore Commentator

DBS has gotten itself into an embarrasing spot in Hong Kong. Excerpt from a TODAYonline report:

'Accident' destroys 83 DBS (HK) safe deposit boxes
WHAT began as routine renovation work at a DBS Bank (Hong Kong) branch over the weekend has turned into a nightmare for the bank and some customers. In what DBS described as a "human error", some 83 safe deposit boxes ended up being crushed in a scrap yard, along with their contents...

The incident happened on Saturday at DBS' Mei Foo branch in Kowloon, which is undergoing renovations. The bank was phasing out its small safe deposit boxes and a contractor was supposed to remove 837 empty safe deposit boxes to a dumpsite to be destroyed. But somehow 83 boxes that were still in use were also removed from the bank vault and destroyed.

In a joint statement with Jones Lang Lasalle, the bank's property consultant and manager, DBS called the incident a "matter of great regret" and said it would honour its "ultimate responsibilities" to affected customers and compensate for what they lost... Compensation will be a complex task as renters of safe-deposit boxes don't need to declare to banks what they store in the metal boxes.

Apart from being an embarrassment for DBS, the mistake is also a potentially open-ended source of liability for the bank.

Not surprisingly, this incident is attracting quite a bit of attention in Hong Kong.