71–80 of 176 posts
Don't think this is atypical of many organisations that have grown their IT over a long period. When I did some work for Network Rail (here in the UK) there were some absolutely hair-raising diagrams of umpteen systems all with lines between them, doubtless many going back to BR days.
This makes me excited for what current microservices architecture systems will look like in fifty years!
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
German speaking financial institutions are a special kind of IT hell. Perhaps it's a cultural love for rules in combination with compliance that evolves in a hellish bureaucracy, perhaps it's something in the local beer. We can only speculate but I've never worked in an environment as dysfunctional as the ones I've seen at big German companies. To give a few examples: - Running all services under a single Linux accou…
Most likely it's a lack of talent, and lack of political will to actually take IT seriously.
Lack of talent is not a national issue in Germany. German unis and schools produces great devs, along with the slef-taught "hackers" and tinkerers which are quite numerous there. The whole "talent shortage" in Germany is propaganda from shitty companies engaging in wage suppression, and actually a shortage of pay that keeps decent devs away from such companies.
It's more the lack of good pay/equity to motivate people, but the main issues are the immovable and outdated bureaucracy without any wish to address it, and the heavy top - down approach where top management is clueless and dysfunctional, scaring away the top talent over time and ensuring that only the equally clueless yes-men stay, and the result is what wee can see.
These large German "ships" are only good at bureaucracy, maintaining the jobs and status quo for those at the top, not innovation, efficiency(despite the stereotype) or customer satisfaction.
My favorite about German companies is project management done in Excel, and bosses who don't want to use Jira and demand their seniors send them emails explaining the current work status. You can't make this up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
N26 is German fwiw similar to Revolut
This is not surprising at all, and is not specific to Deutsche Bank or even banking in general. This is a property of large, bloated legacy companies in any field. IT is still seen as a cost center and a secondary concern rather than the enabler of their business. As a result, pay/resources and "political capital" (for the lack of a better word) are allocated accordingly. IT folks there aren't given the pay nor recog…
My learning here: new is not new if the culture stays the same. Also: never underestimate the power of old. People always talk about the new, shiny stuff. But old was there first. And is much more resilient than it seems.
This is not surprising at all, and is not specific to Deutsche Bank or even banking in general. This is a property of large, bloated legacy companies in any field. IT is still seen as a cost center and a secondary concern rather than the enabler of their business. As a result, pay/resources and "political capital" (for the lack of a better word) are allocated accordingly. IT folks there aren't given the pay nor recog…
There is also a large cultural component. Having lived both in The Netherlands and Germany, dealing with banks or government institutions is a stark difference. The large Dutch banks (eg. ING) are efficient, you can arrange everything online and they have modern apps. With German banks for every small administrative change we had to go to a physical office and the apps/website looked as if they were literally from 1999 (and weird security practices like using a pin to log in). Similar with government institutions, in NL almost everything can be arranged online with a single authentication method (everything from requesting a parking permit to filing for taxes). In Germany it's a lot of literal paperwork, going to offices, waiting in line, and no integration between administration of different public institutions.
My wife (who is German) says that one factor is German history (nazis and the stasi), which makes people distrust any kind of central (digital) administration. So all databases are uncoupled from eachother, people prefer cash, etc. Another thing that is really stifling in Germany is the hierarchy, there is so much formalistic bullshit around company/government/... hierarchies. I experienced this a lot when working with the university administration (I was a researcher/lecturer at a German university). No one dares to make choices that can have some impact, afraid that higher-ups, the court, or whatever will punish them for making the wrong choice. So they hide behind rules and necessary decisions are not made/postponed. Almost no one stands up to their leadership, so even they have wrong ideas, there is rarely any counterbalance.
45 different operating systems?? I had no idea 45 different operating systems still existed that were functional
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…
German speaking financial institutions are a special kind of IT hell. Perhaps it's a cultural love for rules in combination with compliance that evolves in a hellish bureaucracy, perhaps it's something in the local beer. We can only speculate but I've never worked in an environment as dysfunctional as the ones I've seen at big German companies. To give a few examples: - Running all services under a single Linux accou…
Classic strategy :D, those aren't seniors: they're Gods.