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Copyright 2005 Lafferty Ltd Financial Services Distribution June 27, 2005 SECTION: CASE STUDY; Pg. 6 LENGTH: 1011 words HEADLINE: Case Study - Deutsche Bank: Coming out fighting BODY: Two years after a painful restructure, Deutsche says it is not only in good shape but it is improving and ready to become a significant player in Europe. The bank has been focusing on stafftraining, market segmentation, cleaner product provision, seamless channel delivery and financial advice to woo customers Following the comprehensive restructure two years ago of its small business, retail and private client arm - now known as its private and business clients (PBC) unit management at Deutsche Bank are once again smiling. In what has been (and still is) a very demanding period forGermany's banks, Deutsche's PBC division has grown its underlying profits by 88 percent between 2002 and 2004, from E535 million ($654 million) to E1.01 billion. Underlying return on equity has shot up from 33 percent to 60 percent, while the cost: income ratio has fallen from 84 percent to 72 percent. "This is still too high," admits Hans-Martin Kraus, managing director, personal finance at DeutscheBank, who believes he can reduce the ratio to around 60 percent. Amsterdam at the start of June, Kraus described the restructure as little short of a "transformation". "Two years ago, market conditions were pretty tough. We took stock of the bank and decided the way forward was to consolidate four divisions, which included the Deutsche 24 retail brand as well as our private banking and smallbusiness units, under one roof. As you can see from the 2004 results, there's been quite some turnaround." Employee motivation The development of the new PBC business model has been painful, admits Kraus. Two employees out of ten lost their jobs in Europe; four out of ten in Germany itself. Employee motivation decreased almost immediately. Restructuring and a repeated change of adviser had a negativeimpact on clients, and the bank's client satisfaction index, unsurprisingly, declined. The loss of clients and regular client contact led to an immediate loss of revenues. But, in essence, the pain has been worth it, says Kraus. The basis of the bank's success boils down to the new model, which puts customer segmentation, customer service and multichannel distribution at the top of the agenda.Some eight customer segments have been distilled from the bank's customer base, including groups such as young starters, dynamic investors, modern families and two business banking units, independent entrepreneurs and small firms.

These segments are served from what Kraus describes as two delivery systems: personal banking, and private/business banking. While the latter is much more relationshipfocused, the former is a "modern, multichannel service with a focus on simple products from both the Deutsche stable and from a range of partners, new technology and seamless multichannel delivery. This is very important. Our web pages have recently been voted the best in Germany; we have automatic cheque readers in branches; and over 80 percent of payment transactions are now fully automated,saving time and costs." Kraus said Deutsche Bank has been focusing on four key areas: the best staff (employee satisfaction levels have risen from 62 to 69 percent between 2002 and 2004), the best products, the best distribution infrastructure, and the best advice. Surprisingly, advice is perhaps the most important of the four, according to Kraus. "We have invested heavily in a complete financialplanning service which is mandatory for all new customers and which has systematically been rolled out across all customer segments," he said. The advisory service, promoted by a television ad campaign, used the concept of improving a customer's investment returns as its base. "We wanted to push the idea that they would get better returns if they got their advice from Deutsche Bank. To back this up...