Google Cloud to accelerate Deutsche Bank's digital transformation

Deutsche Bank has agreed a multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to redefine the bank's financial services.  The two firms have signed a letter of intent and plan to sign a multi-year contract within the next few months. The partnership will include co-innovation between the two companies to create technology-based financial products. 

The agreement will accelerate the German bank's cloud migration and transform its IT architecture, including optimisation of the bank's current systems in a phased approach. Both parties said they were committed to compliance with privacy and data protection regulation maintaining confidentiality, integrity and availability of customer data and the bank's information assets.Deutsche will also gain direct access to data science, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning services with potential use cases for cash flow forecasting, improved risk analytics and advanced security services.

For its private banking business, a more digital focus will be used to simplify interactions between customers and employees. "The partnership with Google Cloud will be an important driver of our strategic transformation," said Christian Sewing, CEO, Deutsche Bank. "It demonstrates our determination to invest in our technology as our future is strongly linked to successful digitisation. It is as much a revenue story as it is about costs."

Bernd Leukert, chief technology, data and innovation officer at Deutsche Bank, added: "This cooperation with Google Cloud is a significant step forward for our technology strategy, and will transform the way we produce and deliver our client services.

"By bringing together the best of both cultures, we look forward to creating new business models leveraging artificial intelligence, data analytics, and more, with an established technology and innovation leader." The partnership follows an "intensive discussion and due diligence", according to Deutsche. The bank began talking to major cloud providers in February seeking a partnership as part of its multi-vendor cloud strategy.