Deutsche Bank commits to multi-year Google Cloud deal to accelerate move off-premise

Deutsche Bank has formed a multi-year technology alliance with Google Cloud that will see the pair work on migrating more of the firm’s legacy systems to the cloud, while creating new fintech products for its clients.

Bernd Leukert, chief technology, data and innovation officer and a member of the management board at Deutsche Bank, said the partnership marks a “significant step forward” for the organisation’s technology strategy and client services provision.

“By bringing together the best of both cultures, we look forward to creating new business models leveraging artificial intelligence, data analytics, and more, with an established technology and innovation leader,” he added.

The partnership began after the German multinational bank sent out a request for proposals in February 2020 to an unspecified number of major cloud providers to assist the firm with its own digital transformation, and support it in bringing to market new financial services for its customers.

Google Cloud succeeded in fulfilling the brief, and has signed a letter of intent as a show of its commitment to supporting Deutsche Bank with its digital transformation plans, which is set to be formalised further in the coming months with the pair set to sign a multi-year contract.

However, Deutsche Bank stressed in a statement, announcing the partnership, that the Google Cloud collaboration plays into its multi-cloud adoption strategy, and that it will continue to work with its “existing technology partners” once the multi-year contract is signed.

Either way, this collaboration will see Google Cloud commit to working with the bank to move its legacy applications and workloads to the cloud and accelerate the development of its own in-house cloud engineering teams.

Alongside this, the bank will also gain access to Google Cloud’s portfolio of data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to aid the creation of new customer-facing cloud-based products and services.

According to Deutsche Bank, this could lead to the creation of products and services that could help clients with cash flow forecasting and protect their money better through the roll-out of more sophisticated account security options, as examples.

“The partnership with Google Cloud will be an important driver of our strategic transformation,” said Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing. “It demonstrates our determination to invest in our technology as our future is strongly linked to successful digitisation. It is as much a revenue story as it is about costs.”

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google Cloud’s parent company Alphabet, said the firm is looking forward to supporting the bank and its clients growth their businesses and, in turn, shape the future of the financial services industry.

“For more than 150 years, Deutsche Bank has been an industry pioneer, with a strong record of innovation in the financial services sector,” said Pichai.

“We’re excited about our strategic partnership and the opportunity for Google Cloud to be helpful to Deutsche Bank and its clients.”