Deutsche Bank says it would cut 3,500 jobs as part of efforts to slash costs by about $2.7 billion through next year.

Deutsche Bank says it reaped its best annual profit in 10 years last year.

(AP Photo/Michael Probst)FRANKFURT – Deutsche Bank made a profit of 624 million euros ($748 million) during the pandemic year 2020 as bond trading revenues grew and the German bank met its target for cutting costs. The yearly net profit compared to a loss of 5.26 billion euros in 2019, when earnings were hit by large one-time charges. For the fourth quarter of 2021, the bank made net profit of 189 million euros. The bank reduced non-interest expenses by 15% to 21.2 billion euros and has cut costs for 12 straight quarters, management said in a statement Thursday. Revenues for the year rose 32% to 9.3 billion euros at the investment banking division, boosted by a 28% jump in trading fixed income securities and currencies.

FRANKFURT – Deutsche Bank reported its third straight quarterly profit amid continuing government financial help for businesses during the coronavirus pandemic and as revenues rose at its investment bank division. CEO Christian Sewing said the bank was continuing to make progress on a long-term restructuring aimed at improving profits by shedding less profitable or riskier lines of business and cutting employee numbers. Chief financial officer James von Moltke said the government efforts to help businesses bridge the pandemic had helped. Money that had to be set aside to cover loans that aren’t being repaid increased 56% to 273 million euros in the quarter from the year-ago quarter, but fell from 761 million euros in the previous quarter. It continued to shed employees, lowering headcount to 87,000 at the end of the July-September quarter from 90,000 a year earlier.

From Deutsche Bank via CNNFRANKFURT, Germany - Germany's top banker has a warning for Europe's central bank: another interest rate cut could do more harm than good. "It will have serious side effects," Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said Wednesday at a banking conference in Frankfurt. Small and medium-sized businesses have told Deutsche Bank they won't invest more just because credit is 10 basis points cheaper, Sewing said. It is also thought to be weighing a so-called tiering system that would lessen the impact of negative interest rates on the banking sector. The prospect of more deeply negative rates is particularly painful for Deutsche Bank, which recently announced a massive turnaround effort that includes 18,000 job cuts.

From Deutsche Bank via CNNFRANKFURT, Germany - Germany's biggest bank posted a loss of nearly $3.5 billion in the second quarter, slammed by the cost of a radical overhaul aimed at returning the company to profit. Deutsche Bank said Wednesday that it took a charge of 3.4 billion ($3.8 billion) for the three months ending in June, leading to a net loss of 3.1 billion ($3.46 billion). The performance was even worse than the bank had telegraphed: It said on July 7 that costs related to the overhaul would push it to a net loss of 2.8 billion ($3.1 billion) for the second quarter. Without the restructuring cost, Deutsche Bank said it would have reported a net profit of 231 million ($257.4 million), down 42% on the same period last year. Deutsche Bank is cutting 18,000 jobs and dramatically shrinking its investment bank as part of the overhaul.

Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images(CNN) - Deutsche Bank will cut 18,000 jobs and dramatically shrink its investment bank as part of a costly overhaul that marks a retreat from Wall Street after two decades of intense competition with American rivals. The German bank said Sunday that it would shutter its equities sales and trading business, while creating a "bad bank" for 74 billion ($83 billion) in assets that eat up too much capital. "Today we have announced the most fundamental transformation of Deutsche Bank in decades," CEO Christian Sewing said in a statement, calling the moves a "restart." It's a dramatic shift for the 149-year-old bank, a pillar of European finance that has struggled to produce consistent profits despite undergoing a series of overhauls. Deutsche Bank said the job reductions would be made by 2022, bringing its headcount down to roughly 74,000 employees.