Deutsche Bank to close down its remaining IT operations in Russia, 12 April 2023

Deutsche Bank is winding down its remaining software technology centres in Moscow and St Petersburg as Germany’s largest lender ends two decades of heavy reliance on Russian IT expertise in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Frankfurt-based bank has offered individual severance packages to the 500 IT experts still left on the payroll in Russia, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times...

Last year, it quietly relocated some 700 of them to a new technology centre in Berlin. Those left have now been offered voluntary redundancy packages that can be taken up within half a year, the people said.

Deutsche Bank has not yet made the formal decision to completely shut down its IT operations in Russia but that step is considered a done deal internally, according to the people. However this will add more time on top of the six month redundancy window, they added.

“We continue to de-risk our operations in the Russia Technology Centre and have expanded the options available to our employees to include leaving by mutual agreement alongside relocation and remaining on the platform,” the bank said in a statement, adding that the process was “in full compliance with relevant Russian legislation”...

The German group subsequently offered all its staff in Russia the option of transferring their jobs to Germany. Almost half of them took up the offer, and as many employees relocated with their partners and children, some 2,000 individuals moved.

Those left in Russia have been cut off from direct access to any Deutsche Bank IT systems, with their main task becoming “knowledge transfer” to colleagues outside of Russia. As this process is coming to a close, and with western sanctions against limiting the availability of software in the country, the bank now wants to shed its remaining staff in Russia over the coming six months...