Deutsche Bank is at risk of losing its Russia-based IT specialists.
Germany’s Deutsche Bank employs 1,500 staff in its Russian Technology Center (RTC) who maintain and develop software for global trading and the main corporate banking system, the «Financial Times» (behind paywall) reported Friday. The headcount represents about a quarter of investment bank IT specialists.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deutsche Bank has been conducting stress-tests and disaster recovery simulations in the event the RTC can no longer operate or pay staff.
Systemic Risk?
The report stated there is no code or data housed in the RTC, and after a three-day stress test last week, Deutsche Bank told regulators there was no immediate systemic risk to its IT infrastructure.
Still, losing staff could have immediate and severe consequences. The upshot is that «no quotes can make it out to the market, no negotiations can make it back from the market without passing through this software,» the «FT» said, quoting a senior executive. «Trading is complicated and requires real-time support every day... without cooperation from the Russian teams things could start to go wrong almost immediately.»
Options
Deutsche Bank told the «FT» that «Russia is just one of the multiple tech centers that we have around the world.» and is «confident the day-to-day operations of our trading business will not be affected» by the conflict.
Deutsche Bank had opened the RTC in 2001, although it was reportedly trying to reduce its dependency on Russia even prior to its invasion of Ukraine.
