Deutsche Bank : Americas Innovation Network wins at American Financial Technology Awards for the second consecutive year

At the prestigious American Financial Technology Awards, the bank's Americas Innovation Network has been acknowledged as best IT team for the second year in a row. The award, presented by Waters Technology magazine, recognises the team's achievements in strategically bringing innovative technology into the bank.

'This award is not only testament to the achievements of the team. It also demonstrates the importance of Innovation as one of the core values of Deutsche Bank,' said Gil Perez, Global Head of the Strategy & Innovation Network.

Evolving and improving from 2019, this year has seen the Innovation Team evolve significantly, expanding its size and scope to form the new Strategy & Innovation Network (S&IN) under Technology, Data & Innovation (TDI). With a global footprint spanning New York, Silicon Valley, London, Berlin, Frankfurt and Singapore, S&IN adopts emerging technologies for the Bank's Business Units and Infrastructure Functions and leads strategic Bank-wide initiatives for TDI. Catalysing technology and innovation at Deutsche Bank, S&IN seeks to generate revenues, cost reductions, operational efficiencies, and/or risk reductions while digitizing the Bank's products and services.

Demand-led Innovation

S&IN sources, evaluates and adopts technology solutions to modernise the Bank's businesses, operations and IT infrastructure. Their approach is to match internal demand and external supply for technology and innovation. Technologists from S&IN's collaborate closely with both internal stakeholders and the external innovation ecosystem, which includes large-cap technology companies, early-stage startups, venture capital firms and academic institutions.

Startup Collaboration

S&IN recognises that for existing and potential startup partners it can be difficult for them to work with a large, complex and highly-regulated organisations like Deutsche Bank. S&IN has therefore plated a role in advising startups as how to most effectively partner with Deutsche Bank through events, workshops and attentive project management. S&IN also offers its global network of entrepreneurs and startups access to the Bank's market leading financial services and products. This includes Wealth Management for serial entrepreneurs, Cash Management for FinTech companies, and M&A/IPO advisory for multi-billion dollar unicorns.

The location of S&IN's physical Innovation Lab spaces further enables startup and industry collaboration. In Palo Alto the team is virtually at the heart of perhaps the world's most important innovation centre, Silicon Valley. Here, the colleagues have quick and easy access to start-ups, venture capital companies and think tanks - and of course the opportunity to work with some of the leading technology companies. And as the world's largest financial centre, New York is the most relevant location for identifying innovations for the Investment Bank and Corporate Bank business.

Strategic Projects

With new structure and mandate including both technology adoptions and strategic Bank-wide initiatives, S&IN continues to drive Deutsche Bank's technology transformation and proliferate innovation within the global financial services industry. For instance, S&IN is playing a key role in initiating and executing the strategic partnership between Deutsche Bank and Google Cloud, a partnership that will enable the two companies to create the next generation of technology-based financial products for clients via co-innovation.

Joerg Landsch, Head of the Americas Innovation Network, said, 'I am absolutely delighted that we have won this award for the second consecutive year. It shows how the team can continue to over achieve even in more challenging circumstances. I am looking forward to driving further collaboration and delivering impactful technology adoptions moving forward.'