Company: ADZCF
Filing Date: 2025-03-13
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001159508-25-000020
Chunk: 37

Company: DEUTSCHE BANK AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT
Filing Date: 2025-03-13
Form: 20-F
Chunk 37
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 Bank                   |
| Annual Report 2024 on Form 20-F |

Both the internal control environment and the infrastructure that underlies it fall short in a number of areas of Deutsche Bank’s standards for completeness and comprehensiveness and are not well integrated across the bank. The bank’s IT infrastructure, in particular, is fragmented, with numerous distinct platforms, many of which need significant upgrades, in operation across the bank. The bank’s business processes and the related control systems often require manual procedures and actions that increase the risks of human error and other operational problems that can lead to delays in reporting information to management and to the need for more adjustments and revisions than would be the case with more seamlessly integrated and automated systems and processes. As a result, it is often difficult and labor-intensive for the bank to obtain or provide information of a consistently high quality and on a timely basis to comply with regulatory reporting and other compliance requirements or to meet regulatory expectations on a consistent basis and, in certain cases, to manage the bank’s risk comprehensively. Furthermore, it often takes intensive efforts to identify, when possible, inappropriate behavior by staff and attempts by third parties to misuse the bank’s services as a conduit for prohibited activities, including those relating to anti-financial crime laws and regulation. In addition, Deutsche Bank may not always have the personnel with the appropriate experience, seniority and skill levels to compensate for shortcomings in its processes and infrastructure, or to identify, manage or control risks, and it often has been difficult to attract and retain the requisite talent. This has impacted the bank’s ability to remediate existing weaknesses and manage the risks inherent in its activities. Additionally, attrition in positions key to improving the bank’s control environment remains a risk. Furthermore, engagement of third-party service providers may not be sufficient to address the bank’s staffing issues in these areas or the underlying shortcomings themselves. Against this backdrop, regulators, the Management Board and the Group Audit function have increasingly and more intensively focused on internal controls and infrastructure through numerous formal reviews and audits of the bank’s operations. These reviews and audits have identified various areas for improvement relating to a number of elements of the bank’s control environment and infrastructure. These include the infrastructure relating to transaction capturing and recognition, classification of assets, asset valuation frameworks, models, data and process consistency, information technology, security and governance, software license management, payment services, risk identification, measurement and management and other processes required by laws, regulations, and supervisory expectations. They also include regulatory reporting, AML, transaction monitoring, “know