Commerzbank’s incoming CFO focused on additional savings
(14 February 2020 – Germany) Commerzbank’s new chief financial officer has vowed to “look everywhere” for fresh cost cuts just days after it emerged that a European Central Bank official had urged Germany’s second-biggest bank to speed up its restructuring.
Following the collapse last spring of merger talks with Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank laid out ambitions to axe 10 percent of annual costs by 2023 in a plan that will cost 2,300 jobs and close a fifth of its branches.
Bettina Orlopp, Commerzbank’s incoming CFO, said that the bank had started looking for additional savings on top of those announced last year.
“We really go into every area, whether people like it or not,” Ms Orlopp said, adding that the initial results of the new effort to cut expenses had been “very promising”.
A combination of negative interest rates and a slowing domestic economy have increased the pressure on Commerzbank, which on Thursday reported a 25 percent drop in full-year net profit to €644m. The group’s full-year revenue and operating profits were both little changed from a year earlier.
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