Deutsche Bank wants to become a fully AI-powered bank, starting with corporate loans

Deutsche Bank wants artificial intelligence to handle more of its banking operations, and it’s starting by making corporate loans much faster to process.

Some companies that would usually take weeks to receive a response on their loan applications now receive responses within minutes. The largest bank in Germany is also developing technology that may one day enable its AI systems to interact with customers’ personal assistants.

Deutsche Bank cuts corporate lending decisions from weeks to minutes

Marie-Jeanne Deverdun, Deutsche Bank’s technology chief, told Reuters that the new lending system started operating this summer.

The biggest changes involve smaller businesses with relatively simple corporate structures, making their financing requests easier to assess.

“For smaller corporates, which are less complicated in their setup and their legal structure, we’re talking weeks to minutes,” Marie said.

Even larger businesses are gaining advantages from this. Multinational corporations that used to wait months for lending decisions can now get their answers in weeks.

This bank is planning to invest another €2.5 billion ($2.8 billion) into technology from 2026 to 2028. The total technology budget has not been revealed by the bank yet.

In contrast, JPMorgan has budgeted $20 billion for technology investment for 2026.

There are other banks pursuing automation aggressively as well.

Barclays has recently announced plans to lay off about 5,000 people, which is 5% of the total workforce, while increasing the use of AI.

Citi claims that technology makes their teams build products 40% quicker and cheaper.

Deutsche builds ADA to prepare for an AI-driven banking system

Deutsche CEO Christian Sewing wants the company to become a fully AI-powered bank.

That’s quite a task for an institution whose previous leadership complained about disconnected, outdated, and incompatible technology systems back in 2015.

The situation became more complicated when Russia invaded Ukraine, forcing Deutsche to relocate technology workers from Russia.

Although its retail division has reported improvements recently, the lender is still working to simplify its existing platforms.

Its latest project is ADA, an internal platform named after computing pioneer Ada Lovelace.

ADA helps Deutsche develop, monitor, and control AI agents while managing security risks and switching between different AI models.

“We’re already preparing for an agentic economy where our agents interact with the agents of our clients with clear accountability and the right controls,” Marie said.

But regulators are increasingly concerned about cybersecurity, financial stability, and whether banks will actually earn enough from their AI investments.

Major American banks have also started blocking unauthorized outside AI agents from accessing customer accounts.

Marie acknowledged the risks, saying, “We are watching that debate carefully. These are very valid concerns, and, obviously, the management of cyber risk is my number one priority.”

Deutsche is committing substantial resources to protecting its banking systems against emerging threats, she added.