If I were to cancel a DBS card, would I need to transfer out the points?

If this is your only DBS card with DBS points, you need to clear your points by redeeming and then cancelling.

However, if you have other DBS card using DBS points and you cancel one specific card, only the points remains. DBS points are pooled together. It remains active as long as there is still one active DBS cards which rewards DBS points, however you need to do transfer of points

Let me explain a bit of the confusion in this thread.

Dbs points pool for the purposes of redemption, but they are held in separate "silos" until they are redeemed.

This means when you cancel a Dbs card, you need to transfer the point out first, or else forfeit them.

Why there is confusion is because normally banks which pool points don't require you to redeem them before cancelling a given card, assuming it is not your last card. For example if I have 2 uob cards, I can cancel one and not forfeit any points (because it's not my last uob card).

So Dbs is the exception here, because of the way their rewards system is built.