Finanz Informatik and IBM extend and expand collaboration

IBM supports Finanz Informatik in its strategic initiatives with AI, automation, and hybrid cloud technology

BÖBLINGEN, Germany, May 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Finanz Informatik (FI) – the central IT service provider and digitalization partner of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe – and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have extended their successful collaboration with the signing of a new contract.

Finanz Informatik is a central IT service provider for more than 340 savings banks and other network partners, providing efficient, secure, and regulatory-compliant solutions, which are supplied through FI's own data centers. To further improve the already strong position of its banking customers in the digital world, Finanz Informatik relies on the latest IBM technologies for the continued modernization of its software and hardware infrastructure. With the latest generation of computer systems, FI is expanding its capabilities to leverage the advantages and the full potential of cloud computing, automation, and AI for its data center operations, while ensuring platform independence.

The new contract with IBM enables further capacity growth for the next few years and will strengthen cyber resilience in compliance with the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). The contract includes the use of state-of-the-art IBM mainframe, Power, and storage systems as well as modern system software components with AI support from the watsonx product portfolio. This allows cloud-enabled applications to be automatically distributed and managed across various computer systems running in the company's own data center.

The aim is to support Finanz Informatik initiatives and projects that provide Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe with a host of strategic advantages:

"Our contract with IBM is another important building block on our way to inspiring our customers with innovative solutions. Together, we will use the agreed contract components and new technologies to drive forward the digital transformation in the Sparkassen Finanzgruppe while at the same time securing growing capacity requirements in the future. Signing the contract with IBM provides us with long-term planning security and economic advantages in challenging times," emphasizes Martin Waldmann, Executive Director for Human Resources, Finance, Internal Services and Risk Management at Finanz Informatik.

"By signing the agreement, we are continuing a long-standing and successful cooperation. Our customers benefit from the continuous development of our IT platform, enabling us to guarantee a high level of security, availability, and cost-effectiveness. We preserve what makes us strong. On top of that and together with IBM, we're introducing new, innovative products for our OSPlus financial platform. Both companies – IBM and FI – will contribute their specific expertise and benefit from the intensive long-term cooperation. With this collaboration, we can deliver a good combination of proven systems and new technologies, strengthening the foundation of our platform independence, platform openness, and the sovereign operation of our applications," adds Detlev Klage, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Finanz Informatik.

"Across the global financial services industry, we're seeing banks and other financial institutions increasingly embrace exponential technologies, including generative AI, to improve customer experience, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate risk to stay competitive," said Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President of Software and Chief Commercial Officer at IBM. "Access to a robust ecosystem of technology partners is critical as financial institutions look to boost productivity and increase value for their customers. With this new agreement, Finanz Informatik is creating a solid foundation for the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe to continue to offer its stakeholders exceptional added value and innovation."

About Finanz Informatik
Finanz Informatik, based in Frankfurt am Main, is the digitalization partner of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. The customers of the central IT service provider include 348 savings banks, six state banks, DekaBank, five state building societies, public insurers and other companies in the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe and the wider financial sector. Its core banking solution OSPlus is the central digital platform of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe which is being continuously expanded. The saving banks and large parts of the network operate their sales and service channels through this digital platform to support around 50 million customers.

Finanz Informatik offers a complete IT service – from application development to infrastructure and data center operations to consulting, training, and support. Subsidiaries and shareholdings such as Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus, Finanz Informatik Technologie Service, inasys, Star Finanz, Web Computing, and FINMAS complement the IT portfolio of Finanz Informatik with their wide range of services.

Finanz Informatik provides services for around 114 million bank accounts; more than 205 billion technical transactions are being processed on computers and systems every year. The company employed around 4,650 people at the end of 2023. Together with its subsidiaries, FI generated sales of 2.44 billion euros in 2023.

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions, and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service. Visit ibm.com for more information.

Media Contact:
IBM
Marie-Ann Maushart
maushart@de.ibm.com 

** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **

Finanz Informatik and IBM extend and expand collaboration

CHONGQING, China, June 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Located in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the Dazu Rock Carvings have held UNESCO World Heritage status since 1999. Sprawled across 75 recognized cultural relics protection zones, the site shelters over 50,000 breathtaking statues. As one of the eight great grottoes of the world, Dazu Rock Carvings epitomize the pinnacle of world grotto art dating from the 9th to the mid-13th century from different aspects. Celebrated as "the last monument of world grotto art," Dazu, together with Mogao, Yungang, Longmen and other grottoes, constitute the complete history of Chinese grotto art.

Recent initiatives have rejuvenated Dazu's cultural presence. In an 8K dome theater, the Thousand‑Armed Guanyin's benevolent gaze fills the screen, inviting viewers into a celestial embrace. The dance‑drama Tian Xia Dazu (For an Eternal Homeland — Dazu Rock Carvers' Legacy) animates the carvers' epic tale with immersive stagecraft. Even video games now feature Dazu's statues, their contours and stories woven into virtual adventures. This thousand‑year‑old sanctuary is stepping firmly into the present.

The 8k full-dome film Dazu Rock Carvings awakens all 50,000 statues in layered streams of live footage and CG animation, transforming the physical space into a digital world. Reclined within the dome, audiences look up through a canopy of digital stars, accompanied by haunting Buddhist chants and soulful light interplay. Time‑weathered halos reform around sculpted robes — reborn in pixels yet rooted in antiquity.

In Black Myth: Wukong, the Monkey King cleaves through primordial chaos with his magical staff, the thousand-armed Guanyin of Dazu Rock Carvings smiles serenely amid dimensional rifts — holding a flower between her fingers. In the digital Buddhist world, gamers traverse a meticulously rendered Dazu, encountering Buddhist iconography amid mythic quests — an interactive bridge to Eastern philosophy. Meanwhile, CCTV's China in Intangible Cultural Heritage devoted its Chongqing episode to Dazu, describing the site's living legacy as "like stars falling all over mountains and rivers in Chongqing," rekindling collective memory through the screen.

On stage, dancers echo the chiseling rhythms of bygone artisans. Silk‑flowing costumes swirl as performers burst from stone walls, transforming history into kinetic art. This isn't a static reenactment — it's a cultural translation, transmitting the carvers' spirit through flesh, motion, and emotion.

The Dazu Rock Carvings are being revitalized through digital technology and cultural innovation. Digital projection breathes new life into carvings in the virtual spaces, enabling dialogues across time and space; Stage arts, meanwhile, imbue them with contemporary vitality. Technology extends their reach, while culture revitalizes their essence. Through this symbiosis, this millennium-old treasure resonates with the modern era, radiating timeless splendor.

** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **

Dazu Rock Carvings: The Last Monument of World Grotto Art

Dazu Rock Carvings: The Last Monument of World Grotto Art