Head of the institute Christian Sewing wants to end the persistent crisis of Deutsche Bank with a fundamental reorientation. However, the radical restructuring of the group has heavily impacted the bank's figures in the third quarter. The bottom line was a shortfall of 942 million euros, as the Dax Corporation announced.
"The transformation is in full swing, with tangible progress on the cost side and in reducing risk," said Chief Executive Sewing. The institute has made profits in its four core businesses. Before taxes, the group now posted a loss of 687 million euros. The loss was even stronger in the second quarter - it went into the billions.
The core bank, which covers all areas except the wind-down unit, posted a profit before tax of € 353 million. However, Deutsche Bank also had to accept a surprisingly significant decline in its income due to the cessation of its stock trading. At just under 5.3 billion euros, they were 15 percent lower than a year before and also missed the expectations of industry experts.
Company as a new core target group
Sewing's reorganization plans to sharply cut investment banking, which bankrupted the money house with billions in severity. The core of Deutsche Bank will in future be the new Corporate Banking division, which looks after medium-sized companies, family businesses and multinational corporations.
The number of full-time jobs is expected to fall by around 18,000 by the end of 2022 - to 74,000 worldwide. It is still unclear how much the reduction hits the home market. Recently, Germany's largest financial institution had declared that as soon as decisions had been made, they would first be discussed with the employees in the affected areas.
In the third quarter, the number of full-time jobs dropped to below 90,000 for the first time since the Postbank acquisition in 2010. At the end of the quarter, it was 89,958 jobs, about 4,750 fewer than in the same period last year.
It will take a while until Sewing's reforms take effect. Because of the billions in costs for the conversion, the full year 2019 should also end in red numbers - according to the bank's latest figures, it would be the fifth loss year in succession. According to the Bloomberg news agency, analysts forecast a loss of around 4.3 billion euros in 2019.
Added to this is the slowdown in interest rates, which is putting a strain on the industry as a whole. The European Central Bank (ECB) only recently tightened the penalties banks have to pay when they park money with the central bank. As the interest rate environment deteriorated compared to the second quarter of 2019, the bank is working on a series of accompanying measures such as price adjustments for deposits and the introduction of account maintenance fees, the bank said.