Deutsche Bank and Google agree multi-year, strategic partnership

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank said on Tuesday it has agreed a strategic, multi-year partnership with Google to give the German lender access to cloud services and drive innovation in technology-based financial products for clients.

Earlier this year, Deutsche invited bids from Google, Microsoft , and Amazon to overhaul the bank’s outdated and fragmented technology networks.

The deal is part of a 13 billion euro ($14.70 billion)technology investment Deutsche has planned up to 2022 as it restructures to recover from years of losses.

Google and Deutsche have now signed a letter of intent and plan to sign a multi-year contract within the next few months, the bank said.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Deutsche Bank expects the partnership to generate more than 1 billion euros ($1.13 billion) in accumulated earnings before income and tax (EBIT) over the next ten years.

“The partnership with Google Cloud will be an important driver of our strategic transformation,” said Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Christian Sewing.

“It demonstrates our determination to invest in our technology as our future is strongly linked to successful digitization. It is as much a revenue story as it is about costs.”

Amazon and Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

($1 = 0.8846 euros)

(Reporting by Hans Seidenstuecker and Tom Sims; Writing by Caroline Copley; Editing by Michelle Martin and Edward Taylor)