Bringing together tech and business: Get to know Commerzbank’s Katharina Haack

Welcome to our Get to know the customer series at Axway, where we dive into the lives of the real people behind the enterprises we work with. This month, we had a chat with Katharina Haack, Product Owner for API Strategy and Governance at Commerzbank.

Commerzbank is a leading German bank with an international presence, serving private and small business customers as well as corporates, multinationals, financial service providers, and institutional clients.

Thanks to a single set of reusable APIs managed on Axway’s industry-leading Amplify Platform,  Commerzbank is empowering its developers to cut development effort by up to 80 percent and build customer-facing services faster than ever. That’s just one reason Commerzbank earned the Axway Innovation Excellence Award this year.

Let’s get to know one of the faces behind the scenes of this success.

Tell me about yourself! What is your current role, experience, and background?

My key task as Product Owner for API Strategy and Governance at Commerzbank is to promote the topic of open banking internally as well as externally. That sounds simple enough but of course there are many different parts of the job such as developing new use cases, consulting and enabling different departments and  taking care of strategic topics and aligning all of the above with customer needs.

What does a day in the life of Katharina look like?

I spent most of my working day in meetings to align, consult, develop, or organize different topics. But to be honest, that’s what I also love about my job: a lot of it comes from communicating with different colleagues and stakeholders and working together with customers and partners – like Axway – to establish something that really adds value to our customer’s lives. I really love this collaboration.

How has your career grown since joining Commerzbank?

I started at Commerzbank in October 2019 as a Trainee and joined the API program full-time in 2021. Since then, I’ve been able to continuously learn about APIs and Open Banking and to challenge myself as a non-techie in a tech-based environment.

Working within the API program has given me the possibility to grow and to take on new responsibilities and challenges.

What do you like best about your current job?

What I like best about my job is that every day is different and holds new surprises. As the field of Open Banking is still relatively new, there are so many different tasks and challenges to tackle – it truly never gets boring.

What is your favorite hobby or passion outside of work?

Probably outdoor climbing and bouldering. I started a couple of years ago and since then I’ve been spending most of my free time outdoors.

Tell us something not everyone knows about you?

I know it’s been a while, but I used a quote from Harry Potter in my master’s thesis: “Understanding is the first way to acceptance.” This is as true nowadays as it was then.

What are you currently listening to, reading, or watching that you have loved?

I must admit that I’m rewatching Friends for what seems to be the 100th time. I’m addicted 😉

Many thanks to Katharina for lending herself to this exercise; it’s been a pleasure gaining insights into her role as Product Owner for API Strategy and Governance at Commerzbank. Her work exemplifies the value of collaboration, paving the way for innovative solutions in open banking. Wishing Katharina and Commerzbank continued success as we work together in the ever-evolving landscape of technology and finance!

In a new video interview, Katharina discusses how Commerzbank transformed its operations with APIs, achieving a milestone of 1 billion calls per month and unlocking new possibilities for business growth. Watch the video below to explore their journey into API strategy and governance, and learn how they’re reshaping customer experiences and monetizing their services.