Deutsche Bank Innovation Network
We’re a focal point for innovation with a simple, practical role: we connect third party companies to decision makers within Deutsche Bank. In this way, we help Deutsche Bank adopt emerging technology solutions that enhance, improve and reimagine the way we serve our clients.
We identify, evaluate and support the adoption of emerging technologies. We create a culture of innovation. And we support Deutsche Bank’s digital strategy.
The global Deutsche Bank Innovation Network has a simple proposition: work out what the bank's business and supporting functions need, and help find solutions through the vast network of startups and companies across the world. We make it straightforward for startups to find their way into Deutsche Bank, so ideas quickly become reality. While identifying the right partner is helpful, we go one step further. Our Innovation Network provides an environment where technologies, concepts and ideas can be tested rigorously and rapidly, against real-world requirements.
Why work with the Innovation Network?
What companies really need is a connector. For partners who can successfully address our demand challenges, we provide:
- Access to influencers and decision makers across the bank’s global units,
- Resources to refine and develop accepted products to meet the bank’s needs,
- Support in the integration of external technologies and services into the bank’s ecosystem.
Do you have any questions about Innovation or want to speak to someone in the team? Please email contact.innovation@db.com
WhatsApp & WeChat via Symphony
The challenge
Social messaging platforms, such as WeChat and WhatsApp, are reshaping client behaviour with clients increasingly requesting new ways in which to interact with their banking partners. In order to adapt, Deutsche Bank needed to find a way to communicate with its clients in a way that was compliant, convenient and secure. Deutsche Bank therefore pursued a solution which would allow the firm to plug into the social messaging platforms preferred by our clients.
The solution
Deutsche Bank leveraged its strategic partnership with Symphony to deliver WeChat and WhatsApp integrations. These integrations go through Symphony – a platform which is used extensively across the financial services industry – allowing clients to communicate with Deutsche Bank representatives through their preferred social messaging platforms. Through these integrations, Deutsche Bank has been able to enhance its digital touchpoints with clients leveraging some of the world’s most ubiquitous social messaging platforms – WeChat and WhatsApp.
WorkFusion
The challenge
In order to serve its clients Deutsche Bank needs to carry out millions of processes every single day. Whether it is onboarding a new client, performing AML/KYC screening, processing a mortgage, accounting or other fundamental operations, every one of these processes requires careful and secure data controls.
This all adds up to a huge amount of work for large numbers of people globally. Teams across Deutsche Bank therefore sought a way to safely, securely and efficiently automate a number of these processes that did not need to be manually controlled.
The solution
In order to solve a number of these challenges, Deutsche Bank partnered with WorkFusion, a leading vendor of Intelligent Automation solutions combining AI, RPA & machine learning capabilities for business process automation.
WorkFusion automates the time-consuming process of training and selecting machine learning algorithms for work that’s too complex for robotics and uses historical data and real-time human actions to train models to automate judgment work in a business process; like categorising, extracting, validating and verifying unstructured information from emails, documents, adverse media or other sources.
Leveraging a number of intelligent solutions, Deutsche Bank is able to create significant efficiencies across a number of workflows, ultimately enabling the bank to improve services to clients.
Finanzguru
The challenge
Following on from the launch of its API program (dbAPI), Deutsche Bank encouraged developers from around the world to leverage the API to build innovative beyond banking solutions. At a Hackathon event, teams of creative developers were given a challenge to generate a solution for the bank's clients that went beyond the traditional offering of retail banks.
Life is not only about finance. It is about spending time with your family and friends, starting a business, having kids or what matters most to you. With that in mind, the developers set out to build a beyond banking solution that would have a real-life impact.
The solution
The winning app came from the dwins team, ‘Finanzguru’: an AI based individual finance assistant that offers users a convenient overview of their finances, contracts and bills, and automatically recognises and suggests potential savings. The mobile app gives customised financial advice to users by analysing their transaction history. Users can optimise their bills and payments with a helpful overview of all their recurring subscriptions and the ability to cancel or sign contracts seamlessly thorough the app.
In addition to Deutsche Bank investment into dwins, experts from the Innovation Team and the New Ecosystem Team supported the startup in their development of the app after its initial design. Deutsche Bank continues to collaborate with Finanzguru, who have also received investment from ‘Höhle der Löwen’, boosting their customer base in Germany.