THE Singapore Armed Forces' former intelligence chief Bernard Tan will join DBS Group as a managing director in its debt capital markets team, banking sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

DBS, Southeast Asia's largest bank by assets, was not immediately available for comment.

Tan, a brigadier general whose last appointment was director of intelligence, has a first class degree in economics and political science from the UK's University of Birmingham and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a government website.

But it is unusual for military leaders to join Singapore's banking sector, although many have joined government-linked firms in other sectors.

DBS, in which state investor Temasek Holdings owns 28 per cent, is still hunting for a CEO to replace Jackson Tai, who stepped down last month. -- REUTERS