Deutsche Bank turns German fintech Deposit Solutions into unicorn
Deutsche Bank has bought a 4.9% stake in German open banking platform Deposit Solutions, making the fintech Germany’s second-largest fintech unicorn at valuation north of €1 billion.
The investment, the size of which is undisclosed, follows Deutsche Bank’s announcement of 18,000 layoffs and the disintegration of talks to merge with Commerzbank.
The bank expects to benefit from the fintech’s projected growth
The bank expects to benefit from the fintech’s projected growth, having been a customer since 2017, offering alternative investments and increasing its fee income from the deposit business through the fintech
Deposit Solutions lets retail banks which don’t sell savings products offer them to customers through open banking, often at higher interest rates. Deutsche Bank says it’s building the infrastructure for a “deposits business of the future”.
The bank says its been striving to operate as a digital platform “for a considerable length of time” now, and is unphased by the prospect of using third party vendors to provide this rather than its own technology.
“The investment is a milestone for us in two respects,” says Deposit Solutions’ CEO and founder Tim Sievers. “Firstly, the expansion of our platform to include other Deutsche Bank businesses in Germany and abroad will help us grow even faster. Secondly, for the first time a client of ours becomes a shareholder of the infrastructure they use.”
Now working with three banks, the German fintech is expecting an additional two to join their platform in the near future.
