Deutsche Bank has partnered with Australia-based payment infrastructure provider DataMesh to introduce its merchant solutions across Australia, India, Indonesia and South Korea. At the core of this initiative is DataMesh’s customisable payment platform that consolidates multiple payment streams, streamlining operations and enabling business scalability in complex transaction environments. Rachel Whelan, Deutsche Bank’s head of corporate cash management for Asia Pacific (APAC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and global head of payments and transactional foreign exchange, and Oliver von Quadt, global head of merchant solutions at Deutsche Bank, emphasised that the partnership enhances the bank’s payment offerings and aligns with evolving customer demands. “We continuously drive digitisation with our clients to strengthen real-time processes, automation and a unified infrastructure,” said von Quadt. “Merchant Solutions offers payment acceptance, including payment service providers (PSPs) and acquiring capabilities, collection, and strong reconciliation. Combined with Deutsche Bank’s Global Hausbank products, we provide clients with a payment and banking solution that leads to cost savings, liquidity advantages, and better financial planning.” Deutsche Bank’s Global Hausbank products include corporate banking services, such as cash management, trade finance and lending, foreign exchange and liquidity management. Oliver von Quadt, Global Head of Merchant Solutions at Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank’s hardware-agnostic design ensures compatibility with the existing infrastructure and process landscape while enabling businesses to ease payment reconciliation, tokenisation of sensitive data, and advanced business analytics tailored to their needs. The solution also centralises cross-border payment data, offering merchants advanced operational oversight and simplified regulatory compliance. Merchants benefit from features such as shopping cart integration, loyalty programmes, receipting and a dashboard for transaction management. “Our newly launched merchant solutions and capabilities significantly broaden our cash management offering for clients across APAC,” noted Whelan. A collaborative approach to streamlining payments “DataMesh consolidates payment data across multiple countries and currencies, as permissible by country regulations, providing our clients with a unified view of their collections. The portal also provides an analytics layer with visualisation of collections performance,” explained von Quadt. “Whereas DataMesh brings a robust, secure, cutting-edge platform, Deutsche Bank brings world-class banking services and risk management, managing the financial risks of all stakeholders”. Merchant solutions focus on offering card, alternate and local payment methods covering processing and acquiring in combination with banking for its clients. This flexibility allows Deutsche Bank to support a broad client base including various business models (from business-to-consumer, to business-to-business-to-business) across both digital and physical sales channels. Deutsche Bank's move aligns with similar initiatives of peer banks, such as Standard Chartered’s 2023 partnership with PSP, Tazapay. However, these initiatives may often be limited in their payment options, such as by only supporting online payments, or omnichannel payments that support a less variety of payment methods than Merchant Solution. Deutsche Bank’s response to key emerging trends Whelan highlighted the bank’s strategy in response to emerging trends in the APAC payment landscape, particularly the push towards real-time payment offerings and the need for continuous liquidity management. “Our strategy to support our clients wherever their business takes them is supported by building our state-of-the-art payment infrastructure that is cloud-enabled, runs 24 by 7, and can provide safety, consistency, transparency, and scale for our clients as they evolve and change their business models,” said Whelan. Rachel Whelan, Head of Corporate Cash Management for APAC and MEA, and Global Head of Payments and Transactional Foreign Exchange at Deutsche Bank Whelan cited Project Nexus, led by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), as a growing initiative in enhancing cross-border instant payment connectivity among central banks globally, including its pioneering work with Southeast Asian regulators. Simultaneously, merchants embed payments directly into business operations, enabling seamless and personalised checkout experiences. She noted that this has increased the need for cloud-enabled, always-on payment infrastructure, ensuring continuous payment processing and effective cash flow management for merchants across borders. Additionally, the growing adoption of International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 20022 rich data messaging standards supports enhanced payment tracking, reconciliation, compliance and interoperability across financial systems by enabling the exchange of richer transaction data. As businesses adopt more complex and data-driven payment systems, Deutsche Bank aims to provide the infrastructure to support complete payment digitisation and meet clients’ evolving needs. The role of strategic partnerships in Deutsche Bank’s strategy Deutsche Bank’s APAC strategy leverages partnerships with local financial institutions and PSPs to expand its reach. “We see our role not only as bankers but also as partners to serve our clients with solutions covering all aspects of payment and banking,” said von Quadt. He emphasised the various outsourcing models merchants can adopt, including partnering with PSPs based on specific payment methods or regions. “Merchants may collaborate directly with a single bank across the region,” von Quadt explained. “Each of these options has its pros and cons. Almost no PSP or bank can cover an entire region alone, except the European Union.” He stressed the importance of simplifying operations, “We believe merchants want a one-stop shop that can be effectively managed through a single service-level agreement, and this is the kind of management efficiency they are looking for today”. Deutsche Bank applies a rigorous PSP selection process, evaluating candidates based on financial strength, technology solutions, core markets, and risk management practices. “We fully onboard selected PSP partners on our platform to combine payment acceptance with cash management and banking, with minimum integration effort for clients,” he added. PSPs also benefit from these partnerships, gaining access to larger merchant markets, opportunities for regional growth, and enhanced capital access. Looking ahead to expand into new markets Deutsche Bank plans to extend its merchant solutions and capabilities to high-growth e-commerce markets such as Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. These regions offer significant potential driven by increasing digital adoption, e-commerce penetration and the growing complexity of local regulatory frameworks. Whelan emphasised the importance of dedicated teams to address market-specific regulatory complexities while ensuring seamless integration of its payment infrastructure, which plays a key role in Deutsche Bank’s regional strategy. “Having this local presence, combined with our corporate bank’s regional headquarters in Singapore, allows us to drive a regional strategy that provides a holistic and standardised product offering, spanning our merchant solutions and cash management capabilities,” she explained. The merchant solution capabilities are essential in reinforcing Deutsche Bank’s payment infrastructure by addressing cross-border payment challenges through its modular and customisable design. Deutsche Bank’s partnership with DataMesh strengthens their technology infrastructure and offerings while allowing customers to leverage its established banking expertise. It believes its robust application programming interfaces (APIs) and scalable infrastructure enable merchants to adapt to evolving consumer preferences and regulatory changes with minimal disruption. By integrating payment processing with centralised data management, Deutsche Bank aims to position itself as a partner for businesses operating in dynamic and complex payments ecosystems.
