Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Germany, has returned to profit again in 2020, after six consecutive years of losses, according to Al Germania.
The bank announced that the annual net profit attributable to shareholders amounted to 113 million euros (135.69 million dollars) last year, after rising revenues and restructuring helped overcome the repercussions of the economic turmoil caused by the Corona crisis. Analysts had expected more losses in 2020, after the Frankfurt-based bank announced losses of 5.7 billion euros in 2019. Despite announcing a profit last year, the bank’s shares fell by 1.2 per cent at the beginning of trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange after making strong gains in pre-trading.
“In the most important year of our transition, we have been able to offset the impacts associated with the transition and increase credit allocations, despite the global pandemic,” Christian Zieving, the bank’s chief executive, said in a statement. The bank’s risk allocations jumped from 723 million euros in 2019 to 1.79 billion euros last year, reflecting global uncertainty. In the fourth quarter of last year, the bank recorded a profit of 51 million euros, and revenues for the three months amounted to 5.5 billion euros. This brought total revenue for the year to € 24 billion, up 4% from 2019. The bank’s total costs for 2020 fell to € 19.9 billion from € 21.6 billion a year earlier. However, the bank president said that one of the bank’s main goals now is to cut costs by another € 2.8 billion.
