Huge sum already devoured
Deutsche Bank puts app plans on hold
October 6, 2023, 5:58 p.m
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The success of numerous financial apps shows that customers like to invest and manage their money digitally. Deutsche Bank has also wanted to become more digital for its customers for years. According to a report, there is now a severe setback.
U-turn at Deutsche Bank: According to information from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the financial institution has temporarily stopped its plans for a digital, app-based offering for customers with investment needs. The outgoing private customer executive Karl von Rohr made the corresponding plans public a year ago. At the time it was said that the bank wanted to bring such an offer onto the market in 2024. It should be aimed at people who want to have their assets managed professionally, trade securities online and conduct their banking transactions purely digitally. The prerequisite is that the Postbank customer data has previously been moved to Deutsche Bank’s systems, then you can get started.
The move of the IT systems has now been completed – with great difficulty. But Karl von Rohr’s “Vestifity” project is now on hold again, according to the company’s advance report from “SZ”. His contract expires at the end of the month and his successor at the head of the private banking business, Claudio de Sanctis, wants to re-examine important projects, it is said. “Vestifity” is said to have swallowed up a double-digit million sum, including for consultants. The bank did not want to confirm or deny the information.
According to reports, investments in the project have actually been “paused”, although there are still plans to address wealthy customers more specifically and using a digital approach. A spokesman said they are “currently in a strategy process” that will be completed in the fall. “We communicate final decisions on individual projects when they have been made.”
The process seems familiar: the bank had tried several times in recent years to set up a digital bank or digital asset management, but each time it gave up on the project within a short period of time. Other offerings, such as a digital asset manager, have had a niche existence ever since. In 2018, for example, the subsidiary Norisbank was supposed to become a “modern digital bank” for young people, but this came to nothing, just like the plans of the former CEO John Cryan, who also stopped a similar project after a few months in 2016.