Deutsche Bank undergoes restructuring. - Postbank to have fewer branches and introduce advisory centers.
The German Bank will partly mitigate the closure of some Postbank branches by establishing regional advising centers. These centers will give customers access to financial advice through phone calls and video chats beyond the standard banking hours and on Saturdays. In a conversation with the German Press Agency in Frankfurt, Lars Stoy, the head of the private customer bank at the German Bank, said they aim to change the way customers approach Postbank from a primarily branch-oriented business model to one where customers can choose which channels they prefer.
Currently, the German Bank operates nine advisory centers where they're adding Postbank teams in places like Hamburg, Berlin, Essen, Schkeuditz, Wuppertal, Mainz, Mannheim, Nuremberg, and Munich. In addition, they plan to create two new, dedicated Postbank advisory centers in Hanover and Bonn. By the end of 2025, all eleven of the new Postbank advisory centers will be available to customers.
Closure of branches for Postbank
The German Bank intends to decrease the number of Postbank branches from 550 to 320 by mid-2026 and provide postal services in 200 of those locations. The remaining 120 branches will solely operate as banking branches. "We're making sure we're well-represented in densely populated areas and in the countryside," said Dominik Hennen, who's responsible for the private customer business at Deutsche Bank and Postbank. "We can't do it everywhere, but we've made sure we also represent the countryside well."
There will be a decrease in staff, but exact figures were not disclosed. However, there are no planned layoffs until the end of 2027 due to the latest collective bargaining agreement with the union Verdi. Those employees impacted by closed branches are being accepted into the advisory centers by the bank.
Streamlining the real estate financing department
The German Bank's management has also negotiated a more streamlined structure in the real estate financing sector with the works councils. "The German Bank has assimilated various units over the years, and we currently have a rather complex real estate financing world, with three processes, three different employees, and three processing methods," Stoy explained. "We're simplifying this."
Stoy went on to say, "In the German Bank, we've had a medium-sized number of locations where we worked outside of a centralized office. In the BHW at one location, which is in Hameln, and in the DSL at 13 locations. This will now be condensed into a total of six main locations, each of which has secondary locations, resulting in approximately 13 places in all."
