Banks, AI and the cloud: “Regulation could also be an advantage”
Deutsche Bank is experimenting with AI – and believes that the EU still has a lot of innovation potential, as Chief Strategy Officer Christoph Rabenseifner says.
Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt: data as a new market.
(Image: Markus Mainka / Shutterstock)
Apps, neobanks, and AI: the financial business has been set in motion. As Chief Strategy Officer at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Christoph Rabenseifner is responsible for technology, data, and innovation (TDI). He also heads up the corporate venture capital business at the major bank, meaning he also looks for tech investments that fit the financial institution. In an interview with heise online, Rabenseifner discusses the industry's situation, the use of AI, and the question of cloud sovereignty.
heise online: Mr. Rabenseifner, have you always worked in the banking sector?
Christoph Rabenseifner: No. During my studies, I founded a company that I later sold because I wanted to pursue a career in investment banking. In 2007, I then started at Deutsche Bank in London, focusing on banks and insurance companies.
(Image: Deutsche Bank)
A remarkable time, right in the middle of the financial crisis.
You could say that. I started on a Friday the 13th, of all days. But 2007 and the following years were, of course, exceptionally intense for the banking and insurance sector. There were capital increases, forced sales, many EU issues – there was a lot of movement. I did that for seven and a half years and was then active in various roles within the bank, including as Chief of Staff for our Chairman of the Supervisory Board and later in the strategy department.
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How innovative is the German banking sector from your perspective today? From the outside, it often seems like a rollercoaster: here traditional institutions with established structures, there neobanks like N26 or Revolut, which are revolutionizing the market through the customer interface.
The financial industry doesn't exactly have a reputation for being particularly innovative. There's still a lot of catching up to do. At the same time, a lot has happened in the past ten years. With the neobanks, a lot of innovation initially came at the customer interface: better apps, more modern interfaces, simpler access.
“Classic banks have missed the boat to some extent”
The banking itself was often not fundamentally different. Classic banks – whether savings banks, private banks, or direct banks – missed the boat to some extent back then in modernizing their customer interfaces in a timely manner. Online banking existed everywhere, but often in a form that had hardly changed for years.
Has that improved meanwhile?
Yes, especially since the Corona crisis. All relevant banks in Germany have sensibly modernized their mobile apps and online banking. Whether you prefer one solution over another is debatable. But many offerings today are indeed on a level that can compete with neobanks. However, this is not always the case in terms of price and speed.
