Deutsche Postbank, which on November 21 became a potential take-over target for Deutsche Bank, is looking for an overseas boost to its business from the new Europe-wide payments market. "We are looking for foreign partners," Postbank board member Dirk Berensmann told Reuters in an interview on November 20
The comments were made ahead of Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Josef Ackermann signalling that he could be interested in buying Postbank, which is Germany's biggest retail bank, sending Postbank's shares up as much as 3 percent.
The German post office group Deutsche Post that owns Postbank, has said it may decide its future once the country's mail market is deregulated next year.
Postbank is striving to ramp up its business of handling electronic transfers for other banks but the domestic market has little room for further growth, as Postbank has already won Deutsche Bank, Dresdner and HVB, part of Italy's UniCredit as customers.
Postbank handles 7.2 billion electronic payments per year for itself and its domestic banking customers. "Europe is the next logical step," Berensmann said, adding that the focus was on Italy, France and the United Kingdom, while Benelux was also interesting because its payments system was simiar to Germany's.
Potential partners would bring familiarity with local regulations and market practices. The start of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) in January 2008 will create new opportunities for banks to handle their payments more efficiently, for example by clearing them bi-laterally instead of going through national clearing houses.
Postbank is ready to step in as a service provider for bi-lateral and cross-border payments, Berensmann said, adding that he expected banks to start making decisions on alternatives from mid-2008, once they have come to grips with SEPA.
The European Central Bank has repeatedly urged the region's banks to speed up preparations for SEPA, which will allow European Union citizens to pay bills and use debit cards anywhere in the 27-country bloc from a single bank account.
Comments
Comments are closed.