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Postbank branch in Berlin (archive image)
Photo: Paul Zinken / dpa
Deutsche Bank plans to close additional branches of the Postbank brand.
According to a report in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", negotiations are already underway with Deutsche Post.
The aim is to change a cooperation agreement concluded in 2017.
This only allows Deutsche Bank to close 50 of the currently 800 Postbank branches each year.
Deutsche Bank has already announced that it will fully exhaust the number of 50 Postbank branch closings this year and next.
She would like to go beyond that, because the digital banking business is accelerating significantly - and the group restructuring should therefore also go faster.
The number of digital product deals under the Deutsche Bank brand increased by 108 percent last year, more than doubled, said Vice President Karl von Rohr.
The smartphone app now has 30 million customer logins per month.
The number of digital customer contacts in the two brands Deutsche Bank and Postbank was 19 percent higher in 2020 than in the previous year.
For the time after Corona, von Rohr is relying on more direct sales: In addition to the branches, customers should also be able to conclude more new financial products via online banking or the app, via mailings or via telephone and video advice.
Mobile sales and business through cooperation partners are also to be strengthened.
"We want to interlink and expand these various sales channels," said von Rohr.
In addition, Deutsche Bank is saving on IT by merging the IT system of Postbank, which was fully acquired in 2012, with that of Deutsche Bank under the project name “Unity”.
The integration project should be completed by the end of 2022.
By then, at the latest, Postbank will finally be just a brand.
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