“The Postbank with its catastrophic IT gets on my last nerve. Doesn’t fold in the back or front,” wrote one user on Facebook.
(Photo: imago/wolterfoto)
Frankfurt After an extensive IT conversion at the turn of the year, Postbank experienced intermittent problems. Numerous customers could not log into online banking on Monday afternoon. For some, certain transfers from online and mobile banking did not work for a short time.
As part of the merger of the IT systems of Deutsche Bank and Postbank, four million product contracts from Postbank customers were transferred to a common IT platform at the turn of the year. The institute had therefore restricted online banking from Friday evening to Monday at 2 p.m.
Subsequently, due to the very high level of customer use, there were temporary performance and log-in difficulties for some of the users, Deutsche Bank said on Tuesday. “These could be remedied at short notice.”
Numerous customers expressed their anger about the failures in the social networks. “Dear Postbank, unfortunately nothing is still working,” criticized one user on Facebook. Nobody can be reached on the hotline. “When will this mess be cleaned up?” One user wrote: “The Postbank with their catastrophic IT gets on my last nerve. Doesn’t fold in the front or the back.”
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Deutsche Bank said it regrets the inconvenience caused by the restrictions. She also emphasized that all direct debits, standing orders and non-SEPA transfers were carried out as usual.
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Overall, the institute is satisfied with the progress it has made in integrating Postbank into Deutsche Bank’s IT systems over the turn of the year. In addition to the transfer of the four million contracts, the future system landscape of the common platform has also been completed.
“The successful migration marks an important milestone in the overall program,” the bank said. It is scheduled to be completed by mid-2023 and will provide annual savings of 300 million euros per year from 2025.
As part of the project, which is called “Unity” internally, a total of 19 million contracts from Postbank customers have to be transferred to the new IT platform. This is one of the largest IT projects in the European banking sector.
The never-ending story of Postbank integration
Since not all contracts can be transferred at once, Germany’s largest financial institution is planning the migration in four waves. These usually take place over public holidays or over a weekend to minimize the impact on customers.
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In the spring of 2022, the institute had already migrated customers who only use savings products. At the turn of the year, further savings products, custody accounts and associated current accounts were transferred. Due to the high level of complexity, this second wave of migration was “particularly important,” explained the financial institution.
The integration of Postbank, which Deutsche Bank took over in 2008, has been dragging on for years. A few years after the purchase, Deutsche Bank wanted to sell the institute again. In 2017 she decided to keep and integrate Postbank after all.
The legal merger was completed in 2020, but the IT integration is still ongoing. There were delays here too. In contrast to the original plan, according to CFO James von Moltke, costs of a good 150 million euros will be incurred again in the first quarter of 2023 – partly because the two separate systems and a test platform will have to continue to be operated until then and additional personnel costs will be incurred.
The fact that there are complications with large IT projects is more common in the financial sector. Commerzbank even stopped the planned outsourcing of securities processing to HSBC in 2021. Due to software problems, the dispatch of tax certificates was delayed last year.
A Commerzbank spokeswoman said the institute had reduced the backlog of annual tax certificates that had not yet been delivered by the end of 2022. “In a few cases, there are inquiries that reach us regularly over the course of the year and still lead to follow-up work.”
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