Interview with Wolfgang Gaertner on “Digitalization in Retail Banking: Differentiation and Standardization Through IT”

Abstract

BISE: Mr. Gaertner, digitalization has massively impacted many industries in the recent years. Recent studies have also stressed the importance for the retail banking sector. What is your point of view? Gaertner: Financial advice becomes even more important in the digital age. Advice can go even beyond financial advice and does not have to be in person. This is why we are looking for new opportunities to offer products and services to our clients focusing on simplification and convenience by taking care of their financial and nonfinancial needs in daily life. A key differentiator among the competitors within the banking sector will be the client experience. Besides, brand strength has been and will be a key asset and differentiator, and strong brands will attract clients in the digital world. BISE: Historically, banks have followed a tailor-based software development approach emphasizing the importance of differentiation through individualized IT solutions. Recently, the potential of standardized product software has also been identified in the financial services industry. Do you leverage standard product software? If yes, why and where? Gaertner: First of all, we decided to use our own technology roadmap based on industry standards. For example, to date we have already achieved benefits in a double-digit million range per annum and reduced time to market by more than 70 % for the provision of infrastructure through our standardization of Database Servers on a private cloud solution. The usage of standard software is a vital part of our strategy. In the last decade, standardization of processes has been a major trend. Also driven by regulations and implementations of standards like SEPA in the financial industry, standard software is available especially for core banking and reporting systems. Deutsche Bank has a strategic partnership with SAP and is transforming the core systems for our retail banking platform in Germany including Deutsche Postbank. For client facing applications like online or mobile banking, we rely on proven industry standards and integrate standard products wherever they add value. However, the front end to the client is where we want to differentiate ourselves from the competition and where our different A. Madche (&) Chair of Information Systems IV and Institute for Enterprise Systems, University of Mannheim, Schloss, 68131 Mannheim, Germany e-mail: maedche@es.uni-mannheim.de