Deutsche Bank to ramp up tech hiring in India

Deutsche Bank will be increasing its technology workforce in India, given the German financial services company’s focus on strengthening its engineering and IT capabilities in-house and doing more strategic technology research internally.

“With our technology strategy launched in 2019, we want to strengthen engineering and IT architectural excellence in Deutsche Bank, and we need to have these capabilities in-house,” Bernd Leukert, its chief technology, data and innovation officer, told ET on a recent visit to India.

In the last two years, the bank has doubled its headcount in India to 5,000, primarily in tech, but also in other roles. It will add another 2,500 people this year to “cater to growth and backfill roles”, he said.

The decision to in-source tech development and increase tech hiring came at a time when the rest of the bank was undergoing job cuts and rationalisation.

India, said Leukert, was the obvious place to increase its presence given the quality of technology and engineering skills available here. “We decided to grow into technology centres, and India is now our biggest one. It isn’t necessarily about gaining cost benefits, but rather the technology talent that we see in India,” he said.