Deutsche Bank plans to recruit 1,000 in India

LONDON: Deutsche plans to recruit 1,000 people in India as part of its drive to build new technologies in-house. The newcomers will include 300 graduates and 700 lateral hires. They'll be working under Dilipkumar Khandelwal, global chief information officer (CIO) of Corporate Functions Technology rather than for Scott Marcar, the chief information officer of Deutsche's investment bank, but they'll be working on the standard array of banking technology projects- cloud technology, 'simplifying the tech stack', artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Deutsche Bank's technologists who are already based in London, New York, Birmingham or Jacksonville won't be rushing to Mumbai, and this won't be necessary anyway. Deutsche has plans to recruit from at least 25 colleges across India, including the Indian Institutes of Technology where there is more than enough talent to go around.

What does this mean for Deutsche's future technology hiring in Western financial centres? DB has used outsourced Indian technologists for decades, but is renewing its commitment to the subcontinent with its own employees. It's not the only one: Goldman Sachs has 3,000 technologists and 500 strats in Bengalaru, the second highest concentration of its tech staff globally after New York.

Separately, if you're wondering how to get clients' attention during the pandemic, Darren Buckley, head of consumer banking for Citigroup China, has some pointers. Bloomberg reports that Buckley has some made promotional videos in which he wears a black tuxedo and skis down mountains in response to client telephone calls in the style of either James Bond or a man delivering Milk Tray chocolates in 1980s Britain.

"We are a highly regulated business, but it doesn't mean we can't be fun," chuckles Buckley, whose videos on China's Douyin platform are reportedly attracting millions of views.