Deutsche Bank Learns To Compete Beyond Banks

Deutsche Bank’s chief executive is concerned about more than competing with other banks. In fact, he revealed that the company spends most of its time thinking about how to be competitive with non-financial companies and other sectors, like technology.

“Probably the most interesting thing, certainly the one on which we spend most time, would be: Can we be competitive against companies that are not banks? Can we, for example, be competitive in payments versus companies that purport to make payments but are not regulated in the art of making payments?” CEO John Cryan said at a banking conference in Frankfurt, Germany, according to news from CNBC.

While a number of so-called challenger banks — smaller institutions set up with the aim of disrupting larger lenders — have made significant headway in recent years, Cryan raised concern about institutions dabbling in the banking industry that are not yet financially regulated. Facebook, for instance, allows users to send and request money on its Messenger app via their PayPal accounts.

“Can we be competitive against technology companies in what is a world that is becoming more and more based on smart technology?” Cryan said.

He also called out Starbucks as a firm that is accounting for a large part of the banks’ business — deposits. Starbucks customers are able to deposit money into accounts using its mobile app, and recent data found that the global coffeehouse chain had more consumer cash in deposits than some banks in the industry.

“Starbucks … takes a huge volume of deposits — it just doesn’t look as though they’re taking deposits because they’re taking pre-payments,” he said.