Promised.
delivered.
For the internal impact on Deutsche Bank, it will be of great importance that the bank achieves its best result in 15 years.
For the external effect, it is less important whether the result is a few million higher or lower.
What counts here is one thing above all: trust.
That was pulverized after the scandals, the misjudgements and the ignorance of management personnel in the course of the financial crisis.
The 2022 balance sheet shows that trust is back.
For employees, for customers, for investors.
The figures for 2022 are the result of drastic measures that are now paying off.
The strategy of only concentrating on areas where Deutsche Bank is at least among the top three competitors has proven to be correct.
Costs go down, revenues go up, the bank regains market share.
"We must not let up," says Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank, making it very clear that the bank is about to reach milestones.
However, it has not yet reached its goal of complete restructuring.
The mere fact that Sewing describes cleaning up the "regulatory deficits" as just as important as higher profitability shows that the bank is still on shaky ground when it comes to regulation.
The shadows of the past reach far.
For the time being, Deutsche Bank is stuck in a time warp of “business as usual”.
It has to, because the sustainability of the positive results must be the top priority.
The year 2022 has shown how quickly external shocks can change the world situation.
But Sewing will soon have to deliver a strategy for the future.
There are two options on the table: perhaps catching up with the big Wall Street banks via a merger, or circling around German customers as a much lighter speedboat and accompanying them out into the world.
Smaller and more agile, the bank would return to its roots before it began to grow wild in the 1980s and 1990s.
It wouldn't be the worst option.