Deutsche Bank plans to close nearly half its Postbank branches

BERLIN (Reuters) -Deutsche Bank plans to close nearly half its Postbank branches by mid-2026 in response to changing demand from customers, a spokesperson for the German bank said on Monday.

The bank plans to reduce the number of Postbank branches to around 300 from its current 550, the spokesperson said.

Deutsche Bank's new head of private banking, Claudio de Sanctis, had first told the Financial Times about the closures in an interview earlier Monday.

He told the FT that the bank's Deutsche-branded branches will also be scaled back, without giving more details.

Deutsche began the acquisition of Postbank, with its millions of clients and roots in the country's postal system, in 2008 during the global financial crisis but struggled for years to integrate it.

Germany's top financial regulator appointed a supervisor to Deutsche Bank earlier this month to oversee how the lender addresses customer service issues after the integration of its Postbank arm left clients complaining that they were locked out of their accounts and unable to reach call centres.

The cuts are part of the bank's response to a rise in demand in its retail banking business for more digital offerings, said the spokesperson, with the aim being to transform Postbank into a "mobile-first" bank in the medium term.

About 100 of the locations will offer customers on-site advice in a new branch format focused exclusively on banking services, and postal and parcel services will continue at around 200 of the locations, according to the spokesperson.

"All measures will soon be negotiated with the responsible employee representatives. The final numbers and locations will also be determined in these talks," added the spokesperson.

(Reporting by Friederike Heine, Writing by Miranda Murray; editing by Matthias Williams and Tomasz Janowski)