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

efinancialcareers.co.uk

41–50 of 176 posts

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

#41
post #33
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Revolut?

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

#42
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you mean deep learning type systems, you need to train them on vast training sets of similar data so they can learn very general patterns, similarities and connections. Like giving them 10,000 pictures of dogs, so they can learn to recognise pictures of dogs.

These banking systems are all massively complex one off systems, often with very different sets of functions or even definitions of the problem, and the implementation details are different in almost every way possible. They’re the exact opposite of the sorts of problems modern trained AI systems are good at dealing with.

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

#43
post #3

Deutsche Bank has made 5 acquisitions Norisbank 1954, Bonn Carron Energy 2004, Cardiff Better Payment 2014, Berlin United Financial Group 1981, Garden City Quantiguous 2014, Mumbai Given all of these needing to integrate together to some degree, and the bureaucracy of banks in general, add that to their resistence to change / improve something related to the tech if it still works, none of this surprises me. You see…

This is part of the problem with banks with acquisitions and why they end up being so unwieldy. In the old days we used to create gateways to each by "joining" them in some short-term strategy to merge in the long-run. But as we know nothing in the long-run generally happens due to changing priorities and differing goals of teams.

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

#44
post #3

Deutsche Bank has made 5 acquisitions Norisbank 1954, Bonn Carron Energy 2004, Cardiff Better Payment 2014, Berlin United Financial Group 1981, Garden City Quantiguous 2014, Mumbai Given all of these needing to integrate together to some degree, and the bureaucracy of banks in general, add that to their resistence to change / improve something related to the tech if it still works, none of this surprises me. You see…

Norisbank was bought 2006/2012.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norisbank

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

#45
As a firstborn American nerd with 100% German ancestors, it’s basically been frustrating my entire life to watch Germany whiff on basically any computer- or Internet-related technology. I can't even attribute it to the language barrier since they're all taught English at an early age. Perhaps it's that old German pride/hubris/NIH? “Stolz”… They’re a very smart people, not sure what gives. Perhaps a lack of respect for “nerd” aesthetic

If you ever visit Germany, prepare to not be impressed by their Internet access (but possibly impressed by everything else)

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

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Revolut?

It's a UK bank with a Lithuanian subsidiary. Which is fine, but means you don't have a German account number, nor an easy way to sue/contact if legal problems arise. The latter is rather unlikely to be a concern, but the former might be a pain to deal with, depending on your customers. A lot of companies have rules which require double-checking every transfer to non-German accounts. Suddenly, your payments take a few weeks longer to arrive.

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

#47

Deutsche Bank looks like a gigantic organisation rampant with misaligned incentives and barely any oversight. Looking at their list of controversies ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bank#Controversies ), it is absolutely unsurprising that their IT infrastructure is a disorganised and mismanaged mess. It looks like it's beyond saving, with its depressing history over the last decade and a half.

This is what I think a lot people don't understand when it comes to unruly IT systems in large organizations. Deutsche Bank does not have an IT or software engineering problem, they have a culture and corporate politics problem. Even if you have the world's best engineered systems, as soon as you have 30 different systems you'll have a giant mess, and the reason you have 30 different systems is because you have groups of people with different incentives not interested in using someone else's system.

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

#48

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,…

Same experience, putting everything related to tech (printers, programming, Wifi, email) into the "IT department", which is seen as a support service to the core business of banking, instead of seeing automation as business critical in reducing overhead and managing risk.

This is why fintech (although a very overused word by now) is such a breath of fresh air in the banking industry, and desperately needed.

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

#49

As a firstborn American nerd with 100% German ancestors, it’s basically been frustrating my entire life to watch Germany whiff on basically any computer- or Internet-related technology. I can't even attribute it to the language barrier since they're all taught English at an early age. Perhaps it's that old German pride/hubris/NIH? “Stolz”… They’re a very smart people, not sure what gives. Perhaps a lack of respect fo…

Personal opinion as an outsider: Germany seems to be a very risk averse society. They love to plan everything a year in advance and hate surprises. Their lives are so ordered and predictable that they have an unconscious resistance to change, compared to other cultures.

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

#50
post #38

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.

My personal favorite is the website for reporting large international transactions, which can only be using during regular working hours on weekdays.
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