Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, is considering cutting jobs in its high-street banking operations and even moving its administrative headquarters away from Germany in the long run, the bank's supervisory board chief said in a magazine interview Wednesday.
In an interview in the latest edition of the weekly Stern magazine, Deutsche Bank's former chairman and current supervisory board head Rolf Breuer said that the German banking sector was "completely overstaffed. There are too many of us."
Not every small town in the country could have five different banks on its central market square, Breuer said. Asked whether that meant jobs would have to cut, he replied: "That too."
Deutsche Bank's supervisory board was already "talking intensively" about restructuring, Breuer said, but gave no indication when the outcome of those talks might be made public.
"We're talking here about jobs. Things don't move very quickly on this issue in Germany." Breuer refused to rule out a possible relocation of Deutsche Bank's administrative headquarters - or holding - away from Germany in the long run.
"Germany isn't a natural site for holding companies," he said, blaming high taxation and the principle of co-determination on supervisory boards. "We have to change things here," Breuer said. Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank's retail banking operations would remain in Germany. "No one is going to come up with the idea of looking after private customers in Germany from Amsterdam or Jersey or wherever the holding company might be based," he said.