Deutsche Bank has announced that it has opened a Digital Factory in Frankfurt, which will focus on developing digital banking products and act as a driver in innovation, digitalisation and re-engineering the bank.

According to the official announcement, nearly 400 software developers, IT specialists and financial experts from 14 nations are working together to develop digital products using state-of-the-art methods. The bank said that it will continue to invest in the Digital Factory and plans to increase the headcount to 800 by 2018.

At the Digital Factory's official opening ceremony, the bank announced that it has teamed up with the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to ensure its leading position in the competition for ideas and new technologies. Also, fintechs have been on board from the outset, with 50 additional workstations available to tech startups from the finance sector.

"Today's opening of the Digital Factory is a further milestone on Deutsche Bank's journey to become a technology company. We don't want to be driven by digitalisation; we want to be in the driver's seat. The number of successful players in the banking industry will fall. Only the fastest among them will gain market share," Christian Sewing, member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank and Head of its Private, Wealth & Commercial Clients Corporate Division (PW&CC), said."Specialists will join discussions via video link, advisors will discuss client finances with them on their iPads and robo advisors will analyse the capital markets."

Several projects in the Digital Factory have already spawned new digital products and services, including the Deutsche Bank Mobile app, the Digital Factory's first project. The bank said that during the remainder of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017 customers can expect a whole series of new digital products and services for online banking, mobile devices, and for use in branches including the MultiBanking Finance Manager, the Deutsche Bank digital Safe (eSafe), ability to open an account electronically within few minutes and ability to choose between different term deposit offers from other banks in a Deutsche Bank digital marketplace.

“Besides products for retail clients, the development of forward-looking technologies also plays an important role for Deutsche Bank. Work is currently underway on specific applications for artificial intelligence, speech recognition and Blockchain technology”, the bank said.