Deutsche Bank to axe 'excessively complex' IT, slash 9,000 jobs

Guys, do we really need 45 operating systems?

Deutsche Bank is re-engineering its "excessively complex" IT – including slashing the number of its operating systems from 45 down to four – as part of a sweeping strategic overhaul.

Under its major rationalisation plans the bank will also pull out of 10 countries and cut 9,000 jobs globally.

Part of that will also include slashing 6,000 of its 30,000 external consultants it uses in areas such as IT.

Earlier this month the bank promoted Kim Hammonds, global chief information officer, to the role of chief operating officer - signifying its intention to put IT at the heart of its operational change.

Part of that move will also include moving from having 46 per cent of its infrastructure "virtualised" to 95 per cent - and a 20 per cent private cloud adoption to 80 per cent by 2020.

Peter Roe, analyst at TechMarketView, said: "The management envisage a total overhaul of IT infrastructure; re-engineering the architecture, industrialising and automating processes and digitalising customer experience."

As such, “run the bank” costs are expected to fall by €800m (£574m) and a further cut of 6,000 contractors will provide €1bn (£717m) in total savings. "This is a significant proportion of the net savings planned for the Group, of €1.5-2.5bn (£1bn-£1.8bn) to reduce the total to €22bn (£15bn) by 2018," he said.

However, Roe cautioned that the plans may not be ambitious enough.

"To succeed, DB will need to be bold and clinical with respect to its IT transformation, which may well prove counter-cultural. Greater reliance on big vendors, including significant outsourcing, such as evidenced in the HP deal, see here, should be a major part of their plans. There is much to do," he said. ®