DKB

Overview
DKB (Deutsche Kreditbank AG) is a Berlin-headquartered German retail and direct bank, part of the BayernLB Group, serving retail, business, and infrastructure and municipal-finance customers. In the DACH fintech ecosystem, DKB appears repeatedly as a partner bank for fintech and infrastructure providers rather than as a startup itself.

Why DKB matters
As one of Germany's larger direct banks, DKB's fintech partnerships and embedded-finance integrations, including with Upvest for securities-as-a-service and with Raisin for deposit-marketplace products, make it a recurring counterparty in coverage of how incumbent German banks work with fintech startups rather than compete with them outright.

Company
DKB was founded in 1990 and operates as an Aktiengesellschaft (AG) headquartered in Berlin; it is part of the BayernLB Group. Public reporting (Handelsblatt, IT-Finanzmagazin, The Paypers, Financial IT) documents DKB's securities-trading partnership with Berlin fintech Upvest and its cooperation with savings marketplace Raisin.

Role in the ecosystem
DKB functions as an enabling incumbent in the DACH fintech landscape: a large, regulated bank that integrates fintech infrastructure, securities custody and trading, account information, deposit marketplaces, rather than building all of it in-house, a pattern DACH fintech commentary frequently contrasts with challenger-bank models such as N26's.

Selected relationships
Public partnership announcements link DKB to Upvest (securities-as-a-service), Raisin (savings and deposit marketplace), and, per earlier Munich Startup reporting, FinTecSystems (account-information services). Startuprad.io has not independently verified the current status of each partnership as of this record's last-reviewed date.

Startuprad.io relevance
DKB appears in Startuprad.io's own back-catalog primarily within broader DACH startup-news roundups and valuation coverage, including in the context of Trade Republic's funding history, rather than as the subject of a dedicated profile; this record exists to give DKB a stable, linkable reference point for that recurring context.

Public source context
Sourced from Wikipedia, DKB's fintech-partnership press coverage (The Paypers, Startbase, Munich Startup, Financial IT, IT-Finanzmagazin, Handelsblatt, Raisin's own press page), and Startuprad.io's own prior coverage. This is a Level 1 Free record with no dedicated Startuprad.io feature to date; the coverage below reflects incidental mentions in roundup content, not a standalone DKB profile.

Startuprad.io coverage

Episode #376 This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups — March 2023
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/episode-376-this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-march-2023

Bonus Episode: Trade Republic becomes Germany's most valuable Startup with 5.3 bn US$ valuation
Published: 26 May 2021
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/bonus-episode-trade-republic-becomes-germany-s-most-valuable-startup-with-5-3-bn-us-valuation

There is more to this story
For Entrepreneurs Vault members, I go one level deeper: how incumbent German banks like DKB are choosing which fintech infrastructure to buy versus build, and what that partnership pattern signals about where the next wave of DACH embedded-finance deals will come from.
We look at DKB's specific fintech integrations, why an incumbent bank partners rather than competes in these areas, and what that means for founders selling infrastructure to banks.
The full Entrepreneurs Vault analysis is available to members.
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Go deeper with the Entrepreneurs Vault
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