Abstract Due to digitalization, the banking sector has been undergoing massive change in Germany for years. The causes are the rapid technological progress, regulation and supervision, the low-interest phase and demographic change. The future world of work will be characterised by digitalization and automation. These changes will have an impact on how bank customers demand, evaluate and ultimately purchase financial services. This paper examines the impact of digitalization on the entire German banking market and shifts the focus to big data analytics as a possible means of improving existing business areas with innovative approaches. The retail banking business is used as an example to show how Big Data Analytics is already being used by banks and what opportunities there are for further development. This quantitative research summarises the analysis of German banking groups using real key figures. The aim is to identify approaches to how banks can respond to the challenges of the market environment beyond cost-cutting measures. The relevance of the research's findings can be useful for academics looking at big data analytics and digital transformation in general in Germany's banking centre and looking for real examples from practice.