IT Governance in German Savings Banks

Managers of information technologies are responsible and accountable for synchronizing IT strategy with business strategy, effectively and efficiently delivering IT services as well as creating and sustaining value. As part of the corporate governance IT governance provides regulations, principles and responsibilities for IT related decisions to deliver value to the organization. This work investigates the maturity level of IT governance and the structure of decision making in the German Savings Bank Finance Group. These types of banks are public sector financial institutions with the legal status of a ¿corporation established under public law¿ and are economically independent institutes with their own executive boards. However all savings banks share one common service provider for most of their IT services, the Finanz Informatik, and on common challenge.