news
IBS Journal October 2015
Deutsche Bank to axe 23,000 jobs; faces money-laundering investigation
Deutsche Bank plans to cut about 23,000 jobs, or about 25 per cent of its total staff, through redundancies and by spinning off its Postbank division. According to Reuters, the reorganisation
is part of new chief executive John Cryan’s strategy to cut costs amidst falling share prices, stalled reforms, fines and settlements. The job losses will reduce the group’s work- force to about 75,000 full-time roles. Reuters says Cryan ‘presented pre-
liminary details of the plan to members of the supervisory board at the weekend. A spokesman for the bank declined comment’. Back in April, the bank revealed a
wide-ranging restructuring plan but co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen quit soon after, handing over to Cryan. As flagged by IBS at the time, the
restructuring plan would have significant implications for its IT landscape, and a num- ber of proposals were under discussion – such as selling off Postbank, as well as Deutsche Bank’s own branded retail bank- ing business (‘one of the lowest-valued retail operations in Europe’, according to Reuters).
Fell on black days The plan is to review cuts to its technology and back office operations that process transactions, and for client-facing staff. A source that spoke to Reuters says:
‘Back-office jobs in the group’s large invest- ment banking division will be concentrated in London, New York and Frankfurt’. Postbank, a retail bank with headquar-
ters in Bonn, Germany, has around 15,000 positions, which could indicate 8000 redun- dancies once its spinoff is completed in 2016. Reuters believes Cryan will present
his plans before October, around the same time as new CEO of investment banking rival Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, discusses his reforms. Italy’s banking and financial services
company Unicredit is also in the process of major job cuts, while in July this year Barclays Bank announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs by the end of 2017.
Meanwhile in Russia… Deutsche Bank’s onshore investment banking operation in Russia is to close.
6
Deutsche Bank HQ, Frankfurt © Thomas Wolf, Wikipedia
This is likely to result in 200 job losses out of around 1000 workplaces at the bank’s Russian subsidiary. The transaction banking unit is also
going to scale down with the closure of its local custody business. Meanwhile, a number of back office functions of the bank’s asset management unit will be shifted offshore. The changes are expected to be imple-
mented by the end of the year, with the bank hoping to ‘reduce complexity, costs, risks and capital consumption’ as a result. Joerg Bongartz, chairman of Deutsche Bank Russia since 2006, has stepped down
© IBS Intelligence 2015
www.ibsintelligence.com
and is now based in Frankfurt with a remit to focus on business in Central and Eastern Europe. Deutsche Bank is one of the largest for-
eign banking entities in Russia. Its IT set-up includes Aleri’s legacy treasury and capital markets system, Atlas, and the BISquit core banking system from Russian vendor BIS. Deutsche Bank is currently under
investigation by the US, UK and German regulators on an alleged money launder- ing probe that involves $6 billion of Russian and UK trades.
Antony Peyton
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
