In September 2016, Commerzbank launched its digital strategy 'Commerzbank 4.0'. The German bank pledged €700m of investments in digitalisation and IT per year with the aim of digitalising 80% of relevant processes by the end of 2020 – effectively evolving into a digital enterprise.
Three years earlier it had launched Main Incubator (MI), initially part of the corporate bank, or Mittelstandsbank, to promote and invest in fintech start-ups. But when Michael Spitz took over the role of CEO of MI in late 2017, the bank turned it into a research and development (R&D) unit to support the bank’s transformation. “It’s not just playing around in a sandbox, but about how MI can be part of constructing change within the bank,” says Mr Spitz.
