Berlin (AFP) – Deutsche Bank announced Thursday plans to cut 3,000 jobs and almost 200 bank branches throughout Germany, part of a vast overhaul following big losses and scandals at Germany’s biggest lender.
“It is a painful decision to reduce jobs. Unfortunately, this step cannot be avoided if Deutsche Bank is to remain competitive in the long term,” board member Christian Sewing said in a statement.
Almost 3,000 jobs will be cut in the private and commercial sectors which serve eight million clients in Germany, the group said.
“We will strive to offer other jobs in the bank to those employees impacted,” added the bank which had 45,300 employees in the country at the end of 2014.
The bank said it will next year consolidate 723 branches into 535 larger sites, a loss of 188 branches nationwide.
The cuts are part of a massive overhaul announced last October, following Deutsche Bank’s biggest-ever quarterly loss of 6.01 billion euros ($6.6 billion).
The group said then that it would axe tens of thousands of jobs, sell off assets and pull out of 10 countries.
The overall measures are expected to lead to gross cost savings of about 3.8 billion euros, including restructuring and severance costs of approximately 3.0-3.5 billion euros.
In addition, the bank plans to dispose of assets with a total cost base of around four billion euros and 20,000 full-time equivalent positions over two years.
Deutsche Bank is currently mired in a tangle of litigation cases and was fined a record $2.5 billion in May 2015 for its involvement in rigging interest rates.
It has also faced probes by Swiss authorities for suspected price fixing on the precious metals market, and US investigators have looked at its Moscow branch on suspicion of possible involvement in money-laundering.
In addition, it undertook massive write-downs on assets such as its stake in China’s Hua Xia Bank, thereby pushing it deep into the red.
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