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Deutsche Bank Accelerates Innovation Lab Trend With Launch In Silicon Valley

Tom Burroughes

11 April 2016

Welcome to one of the latest must-have accessories in banking – an innovation laboratory.

Last week, , investments in financial technology have grown sharply in the past decade - rising from $1.8 billion in 2010 to $19 billion in 2015 - with more than 70 per cent of this investment focusing on the "last mile" of user experience in the consumer space.

In its new lab, Deutsche Bank is working in partnership with IBM, which is contributing resources, expertise and relationships to the bank-led efforts, the bank said in a statement.

The opening follows the launch of innovation labs in Berlin and London last year by the German bank.

The bank's innovation lab team has been active in Silicon Valley since 2014, previously working from a local start-up accelerator centre.

In its Digital Disruption report, Citigroup said fintech will squeeze some jobs in retail banking. So far, the pace of staff reductions has been gradual (by around 2 per cent per year or 11-13 per cent from peak levels pre-crisis). The bank said it thinks there could be another 30 per cent drop in staff between 2015 and 2025.