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Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

efinancialcareers.co.uk

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Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#31

Post by fnordpiglet »

danielovichdk wrote: post #23

I have so many good stories from developing software inside banking. Every management team I have ever worked for in banking - I have worked 4 stints in 4 different banks as a contractor - has been so old school that its been impossible to apply any up to date constructs from the professional software world. I once had a manager who had been with the bank for 40 years. He simply drawed 3 boxes on a board, drawed a fe…

It varies vastly depending on the bank and what part. I know from my career some of the most advanced computing platforms I’ve ever seen across any industry were in leading banks with sophisticated quant trading divisions - but only in the trading front office. Goldman in the late 1990’s through 2010 or so was bar none extraordinary with some of the most brilliant human beings alive developing systems that are unmatched today. On the other hand in the same bank some of the crustiest most process laden software management was crushing the life out of human souls.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#32

Post by johngladtj »

ahartmetz wrote: post #8

They acquired Postbank (where I have an account) some years ago. Postbank had a reputation for good IT. Now they are consolidating their online banking system... Of course, on the bad system of Deutsche Bank. It's a huge mess. I need to log into two different systems for credit card and bank account things. They mailed me account statements for the timeframe of one day once and for a few days another time. I never ge…

I've worked in IT (system Integration) for Postbank a number of years ago... Their IT was never good when you can see how the sausage is made

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#33

Post by V__ »

ant6n wrote: post #25
ahartmetz wrote: post #8

They acquired Postbank (where I have an account) some years ago. Postbank had a reputation for good IT. Now they are consolidating their online banking system... Of course, on the bad system of Deutsche Bank. It's a huge mess. I need to log into two different systems for credit card and bank account things. They mailed me account statements for the timeframe of one day once and for a few days another time. I never ge…

Uh oh, I was considering opening an account with them… actually they couldnt in July, because of their IT transition. Maybe I‘ll pick a different one. Any recommendations for a good Business Account in Germany?

Sadly, business accounts are kinda all over the place. I use Kontist, but it's pretty basic. You could also look into your local Sparkasse, it should have everything you need.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#34

Post by arianvanp »

Yeh you notice it as a customer.

I can't choose a password for my account; instead they assigned me a 6-digit PIN (Not kidding. A PIN).

When I registered my account at a local branch I gave them my dutch phone number. Their website's transaction page wouldn't load due to a JavaScript parsing error over the dutch phone number format. I called customer support and they basically reacted as if water was burning. They would promise to get back to me. 3 weeks later I still couldn't access my online bank account's transaction page. I ended up eventually manually editing the HTML in inspector in order to be able to navigate to the page where I could update my phone number to a German one and I never heard back from support.

I tried opening a depot account for trading stocks. It just says "Internal server error. your account id is incompatible. Please open an additional account with Deutsche Bank". I then tried this; had to go to KYC all over again; but I can't because I can't register two accounts on the 2FA app that is mandatory to have on my phone. Customer support adviced to get a second phone (??).

and I'm just a normal customer. It's impossible to bank with this bank. Every time I have to interact with them it feels like i'm in some weird fever dream.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#35

Post by raverbashing »

dsr_ wrote: post #22
raverbashing wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if maybe AI could help with such an ungrateful job. Yes because one division is sending the data in XML and a 3 letter county code and values in thousands of monetary unit and another system does things in a completely different way

No, because the field that in one system is called "cash" is called "settled" in another; system A uses BCD for money, system B uses 32 bit unsigned ints reckoned in millicents, and system C uses a cash object which can define original currency, calculated currency value, guaranteed conversion preference, contract reference number, and precision. Understanding semantics is required, not just form.

Yes, you got it. But I still think AI can at least make it easier

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#36

Post by sgt »

baz00 wrote: post #26
danielovichdk wrote: post #23

I have so many good stories from developing software inside banking. Every management team I have ever worked for in banking - I have worked 4 stints in 4 different banks as a contractor - has been so old school that its been impossible to apply any up to date constructs from the professional software world. I once had a manager who had been with the bank for 40 years. He simply drawed 3 boxes on a board, drawed a fe…

I have to run integrations with things those sort of people designed. We get EDI streams and error codes straight from some COBOL thing from the 70s which has been carefully ported through to whatever crap they're running today verbatim. Recently there was an issue where a field overflowed which broke literally everything. Then they added a zero to the start as part of the specification which broke it even more becau…

Most banks are still running COBOL at the core, I think. That's at least the case here in South Africa. Each bank then has large IT teams building interfaces and pretty things around the core, using languages such as C# and Java.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#37

Post by fxtentacle »

ant6n wrote: post #25
ahartmetz wrote: post #8

They acquired Postbank (where I have an account) some years ago. Postbank had a reputation for good IT. Now they are consolidating their online banking system... Of course, on the bad system of Deutsche Bank. It's a huge mess. I need to log into two different systems for credit card and bank account things. They mailed me account statements for the timeframe of one day once and for a few days another time. I never ge…

Uh oh, I was considering opening an account with them… actually they couldnt in July, because of their IT transition. Maybe I‘ll pick a different one. Any recommendations for a good Business Account in Germany?

I've been with Deutsche Bank for 14 years and it has been mostly smooth sailing. Some things require calling my account manager and/or driving to their local office with my ID card and their contract forms are ridiculously lengthy, but overall I can't remember any major issue. I use the Banking4 app for online access and import into Agenda bookkeeping. For Sepa deductions from my customers, I can import CSV files through Banking4 and then submit them with HBCI. Oh and don't be afraid to ask for rebates. Good behaviour in the past may allow you to get lower fees, because then you're lower risk for them.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#38

Post by meibo »

arianvanp wrote: post #34

Yeh you notice it as a customer. I can't choose a password for my account; instead they assigned me a 6-digit PIN (Not kidding. A PIN). When I registered my account at a local branch I gave them my dutch phone number. Their website's transaction page wouldn't load due to a JavaScript parsing error over the dutch phone number format. I called customer support and they basically reacted as if water was burning. They wo…

That just sounds like a normal day of interacting with basic German IT infrastructure. It's all the same.

Re: Deutsche Bank's “dysfunctional” IT division (2018)

#39

Post by kwant_kiddo »

eru wrote: post #20
kwant_kiddo wrote: post #12

Worked in a similar organisation also. The culture in european banks is even more dull than I expected before working there. The view on technology and infrastructure is very primitive... as you can also read from just the header "IT division". I initially thought that they were competent but greedy turns out the banks are really just greedy, naive and sometimes... plain stupid. I don't know if it's unique to Europe,…

> The culture in european banks is even more dull than I expected before working there. > I don't know if it's unique to Europe, but I am never working for a non tech-first company again. For what it's worth, Goldman Sachs is reasonably competent in tech, and used to be even more so (at least in relative terms). Bloomberg is about half-way between the banks and the more competent tech companies. (I worked at both, an…

I almost wrote a non-US company. In general I must say that working for tech in European firms vs US firms is night and day, but that is another discussion :)
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